The following are the chief personalities during the Wars against
the Cathars:

Crusade Leaders and their Allies

Pope Innocent III: Called the crusade in 1208. Click
here for more on Pope
Innocent III

Arnaud Amaury:Cistercian
Abbot of Cîteaux. Military commander of the crusade
in its early stages. Click here for more on Arnaud
Amaury.

Bernard of Clairvaux (Saint Bernard):Cistercian
Abbot who had tried to combat "heresy" in Toulouse and
the Languedoc by preaching against it in the century before the
Crusade. Click here for more on Bernard
of Clairvaux

Simon de Montfort: Titular Earlof Leicester, and
lord of Montfort. Took over leadership of the Cathar Crusade
after the initial victories at Béziers
and Carcassonne.
Click here for more on Simon
de Montfort

Amaury de Montfort: Earl of Leicester. Took
over leadership of the Cathar Crusade after the death of his father
Simon. Click here for more on Amaury
de Montfort

Dominic Guzmán (Saint Dominic): A preacher
who set up the religious order ("The Dominicans")
which established and ran the first papal Inquisition.
Click here for more on Dominic
Guzmán

Bernard Gui: A Dominican
Inquisitor who left a useful manual for identifying and punishing
Cathars and other supposed "heretics". Click here for
more on Bernard
Gui

Philippe Augustus: King of France. Requested by Pope
Innocent III to lead a crusade against the Cathars of the Languedoc.
Eventually allowed his vassals and later still his son to join the
Crusade. Click here for more on Philippe
Augustus

Louis VIII: King of France. Joined the Cathar Crusade
and later led it. Click here for more on Louis
VIII

Blanche of Castile: (1188-1252). Regent of France
(1226-36) during the infancy of her son Louis
IX, King of France. Click here for more on Blanche
of Castile

Louis IX: King of France, also known as Saint Louis,
a Crusader King. Click here for more on Louis
IX

Fulk (or Folquet) de Marseille: A troubadour who
later became Bishop of Toulouse. Click here for more on Fulk
de Marsielle

Jacques Fournier, Bishop of Pamiers: (c 1280 -
1342) Famous for his Inquitation records which survived in the Vatican
Archives after he was elected Pope as Benedict XII. Click here for
more on Jacques
Fournier

Opponents and Victims of the Crusade.

Peter II: (1174-1213) King of Aragon (1196-1213).
Close relative and ally of the Counts
of Toulouse. Recognised as the greatest Crusader in Christendom
at the time, but opposed to the Crusade against his own vassals.
Click here for more on Peter
II:

Crusade Leaders and their Allies

As Abbot of Cîteaux, Arnaud was the chief Abbot of the
Cistercian
monastic order. Like Saint
Dominic who followed him, he made it his business to convert
the supposedly heretical Cathars of the Languedoc back to the
One True Catholic Church. His preaching, like that of St
Dominic, was recognised as a comprehensive and humiliating
failure, an inevitable embarrassment for a golden mouthed prince
of the Church claiming to be assisted by God himself.

As the Song
of the Cathar Wars relates, the people of the Languedoc laughed
at him and scorned him as a fool [laisse 3]. They paid no attention
to him and despised everything he said [laisse 4]. When he preached
they commented to each other "Ara roda l'abelha" - "That
bee is buzzing around again" [laisse 46]. As Voltaire commented
in his Account
of the Crusade against the People of the Languedoc: "L'abbé
de Cîteaux paraissait avec l'équipage d'un prince.
Il voulut en vain parler en apôtre; le peuple lui criait:
Quittez le luxe ou le sermon" - "The Abbot of Cîteaux
appeared, with the entourage of a prince. In vain he spoke as
an Apostle; the people shouted at him Abandon either your
luxury or your preaching.

As with Saint
Dominic, Arnaud's reaction was to arrange death and destruction
of those responsible for his humiliation. The murder of one of
his monks, Pierre de Castelnau, from the Abbey
of Fontfroide, provided a pretext, and soon the crime was
pinned on Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse,
although there was no evidence against him, and no trial was ever
held, despite Raymond's request for one. Pope
Innocent III, after meeting with Arnaud, started preaching
a formal Crusade
against the people of the Languedoc, and also issued secret orders
to his notary Milo to the effect that Raymond should be destroyed
whatever he did.

Arnaud himself was appointed as military
leader of the crusaders during the first stages of the war
in 1209. This was a perfectly normal occurrence at this time,
but Arnaud's love of terror and killing was perhaps above average,
even for a senior churchman. It was he who was responsible for
the mass burning alive of "many heretics and many fair women"
at Casseneuil", for the massacre at Béziers,
where some 20,000 men, women and children were killed in an
"exercise of Christian charity", and for the immortal words "Kill
them all. God will know his own". He was also responsible for
the siege of Carcassonne,
and for the seizure of Raymond-Roger
Trencavel, Viscount of Carcassonne,
Béziers, Albi and the Razès during a truce - leading
to the fall of Carcassonne.
He arrived at Minerve
just in time to engineer the deaths of 140 people whose lives
would otherwise have been spared.

That the Crusade was really just a war against the people of
Occitania
rather than a punishment for a single murder is evident from the
fact that it was directed against the lands of Raymond-Roger Trencavel
and not those of Raymond VI (who himself joined the Crusade).
As far as is known Raymond-Roger was given no warning and no opportunity
to answer any charges against him.

The first phase of the formal crusade over, Arnaud tried to find
a senior French noble to hold the territory, but none would accept.
Finally, Arnaud, speaking on behalf of the pope, ordered Simon
de Montfort to take on the impossible job.

Today Arnaud is best remembered for his instruction before the
massacre at Béziers.
In Latin "Cædite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius";
in French "Tuez-les tous, Dieu reconnaîtra les siens";
in English "Kill them all. God will know his own". Click
on the following link for more on the
siege and massacre at Béziers

Kill Them All ...

In recent times some people have started to voice doubts about
whether Arnaud Amaury ever spoke the words attributed to him and
this has become a point of contention between historians and Catholic
apologists.

Simon IV de Montfort (1160 - 25th June, 1218)

Simon de Montfort succeeded his father as Baron de Montfort in
1181. In 1190 he married Alix de Montmorency, the daughter of Bouchard
III de Montmorency.

In 1191 Simon's brother, Guy
de Montfort, left on the Third Crusade in the retinue of King
Philip II of France. In 1199, while taking part in a tournament
at Ecry-sur-Aisne, Simon heard Fulk of Neuilly preaching the Fourth
Crusade. Along with Count Thibaud (Theobald) de Champagne, he took
the cross as did his brother Guy.
The crusade was diverted by a Cardinal to the Christian city of
Zara on the Adriatic Sea. The city was sacked and plundered in 1202.
Simon did not participate in the sacking, and soon he left the Crusade,
continuing to the Holy Land. (His fellow Crusaders went on to sack
the city of Constantinople).

At the time of the Cathar
Crusade, Simon had already built a reputation. He
was a rare commodity within the Catholic fold. He was
not only a fearsome warrior, but also a good tactician and strategist. Further,
he had distinguished himself in the Fourth Crusade by refusing to
attack his fellow Christians in Byzantium.

In 1209 he found himself among the army assembled under the Abbot
of Cîteaux to attack the Cathars
of the Languedoc. After the initial victories at
Béziers
and Carcassonne
the nobles looked for one of their number to take over the leadership. None
of them was prepared to take on what appeared to be an impossible
task, especially as it involved a feudal dispossession that many
considered not only illegal but also a dangerous precendent. As
Simon had distinguished himself once again in battle he was offered
the leadership and effectively ordered to accept it. Simon
had no choice. He accepted and over the following nine years confirmed
his reputation for tactical brilliance.

Simon IV's father was Simon III de
Montfort, descended from the lords of Montfort l'Amaury
in France, near Paris. Simon held only a small estate
in France, north of the forest of Yveline.

Simon IV's mother Amicie de Leicester
was the eldest daughter of Robert de Beaumont, 3rd Earl
of Leicester. Her brother Robert de Beaumont succeeded
as 4th Earl of Leicester, but after his death without
children in 1204, she inherited half of his estates
and a claim to the earldom. The estate was divided early
in 1207, and under the division the rights to the earldom
were assigned to Amicia and Simon. However, King
John of England took possession of the lands himself
in February 1207, and confiscated its revenues. Later,
in 1215, the lands were passed into the hands of Simon's
nephew, Ranulph de Meschines, 4th Earl of Chester.

Simon IV de Montfort claimed the earldom
of Leicester, and so is often referred to as a Count
in general or specifically the Earl of Leicester (a
French count corresponding to an English Earl).

The Church awarded Simon territory
conquered from Raymond VI of Toulouse. Simon became known
and feared for his cruelty and for his "treachery, harshness,
and bad faith." In fairness he was often acting in obedience
to Church orders, as in 1210 when he burned 140 Cathars
alive in the village of Minerve.
He was a man of extreme Catholic orthodoxy, committed to the Dominican
Order and to the suppression of what he believed to be heresy.

He led the Crusader army at Termes
1210, Lavaur
1211, Toulouse
1211, and Castelnau 1211. In 1213 his Crusader army defeated Peter
II King of Aragon at the Muret.
The southern armies were now crushed, but Simon carried on the campaign
as a war of conquest, being appointed lord over all the newly acquired
territory with Raymond VI's titles as Count
of Toulouse and Duke of Narbonne (1215).

From 6 June 1216 to 24 August 1216
he besieged Beaucaire,
which had been taken by his son Raymondet (later Raymond
VII of Toulouse). Responding to rumours that Raymond VI was on his way to Toulouse
in September 1216, Simon abandoned the siege
of Beaucaire, and sacked the city of Toulouse.
Raymond returned to take possession of Toulouse
a year later in October 1217 and Simon again hastened to the city,
this time to besiege it.

After maintaining the siege for nine months Simon was killed on
25 June 1218. His head was smashed by a stone from a mangonel operated
by the women of Toulouse
- "donas e tozas e mulhers" (noblewomen, little girls
and men's wives). He was initially buried in the Cathedral
of Saint-Nazaire at Carcassonne
but his body was soon removed to his home in France.

In the nineteenth century the Capitouls of Toulouse commissioned
a series of historical murals. One of them shows a lion representing
Simon
de Montfort pierced through the body by a pole surmounted by
the cross of Toulouse.

The symbolism is drawn from the arms
of the Montfort and Toulouse. The banner reads "Montfort is
dead. Long live Toulouse (Montfort est mort. Viva Tolosa). It is
a striking image and suggests a strong identification with Count
Raymond against Simon.

Simon left three sons and two daughters:

Amaury de Montfort, his eldest son, who inherited his French
estates. Click here for more about Amaury
de Montfort

Guy de Montfort, (named after his uncle Guy
de Montfort) who married Petronille, Countess of Bigorre,
on 6 November 1216 - an attempt to build a family dynasty in Occitania.
He died at the siege of Castelnaudry
on 20 July 1220.

Simon
de Montfort, who eventually gained possession of the earldom of
Leicester (previously appropriated by King
John of England) because of the de Montfort family's allegiance
to the King of France. This Simon not only regained the
Earldom but played a leading role in establishing parliamentary
rights in England in the reign of Henry
III. He has been called "The father of parliament".
A plaque to him adorns a wall in the US House of Representatives.
In recent years a British university has been named after him,
and he is remembered with great honour to this day, a polar opposite
of his father who left only a legacy of bitterness and hatred.

The Counts of Toulouse issued charters
promising their subjects protection, justice and respect
for established custom a generation before Magna Carta.
The statute of Pamiers, imitating this tradition, was issued
at Pamiers, near Toulouse, in December 1212 by Simon de
Montfort. In this charter Simon styles himself as Earl of
Leicester (comes Leyc) and also Vicomte of Beziers
and Carcassonne, and lord of Albi and the Razès.
This charter, sealed and guaranteed by half a dozen French
bishops, includes more than 50 clauses, prohibiting the
sale of justice, dealing with the rights of heirs and widows,
and promising not to demand military service from his tenants
save by grace and in return for pay. Ten of its 11 opening
clauses guarantee freedoms to the Church. Attached to it
is a letter commanding publication, sealed by Simon himself.
Many of the Statute of Pamierss clauses deal with
problems also addressed by Magna Carta. It was almost certainly
known in England. Several English knights fought in Simons
army, including Walter Langton, brother of the Archbishop
of Canterbury. In 1212 the English barons planned to depose
King John and to make Simon de Montfort king in his stead.
Simons son, another Simon (1208-65), would later become
leader of an English baronial rebellion. In 1265, 50 years
after Magna Carta, the younger Simon played a crucial role
in the emergence of the English Parliament.

Statue of Simon de Montfort on the Haymarket
Memorial Clock Tower in Leicester.

Illustration by Alphonse-Marie-Adolphe de
Neuville from François Guizot (1787-1874), The History
of France from the Earliest Times to the Year 1789, London
: S. Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, 1883, p. 515

An allegoric painting of the lamb of
the Languedoc killing the lion of de
Montfort , by Jean-Paul Laurens (1899), on the ceiling
of the salle des Illustres, Capitole, Toulouse

Today, the spot where Simon de Montfort met
his end is marked by a plaque set into a wall of pink Toulouse
brick (see left). It reads: "Old Montoulieu Gardens -
During the siege of Toulouse in the course of the Albigensian
Crusade Simon de Montfort was killed here in 1218". The
last two lines are a quotation from the Song
of the Cathar Wars, laisse 205, cited above: both read
"now a stone hit just where it was needed" first
in French then in the original Occitan.

Simon was roundly hated in the Languedoc for his cruelty and ambition.
Here is a description of his death from the contemporary Song
of the Cathar Wars, laisse 205, written in Occitan:

There was in the town a mangonel built by our carpenters
And dragged with its platform from St Sernin.
It was operated by noblewomen, by little girls and men's wives,
And now a stone hit just where it was needed
Striking Count Simon on his steel helmet
Shattering his eyes, brains, and back teeth,
And splintering his forehead and jaw.
Bleeding and black, the Count dropped dead on the ground.

Simon de Montfort left few friends in the lands he pillaged and
tried to rule. He continues to be hated to this day. The
consensus is that the writer of the Song
of the Cathar Wars had it about right [laisse 208]. His
scathing words about Simon's glowing epitaph in the Cathedral of
St Nazaire (now the Basilica
of Saint-Nazaire) in Carcassonne
are given below:

The epitaph says, for those who can read it,
That he is a saint and martyr who shall breathe again
And shall in wondrous joy inherit and flourish
And wear a crown and sit on a heavenly throne.
And I have heard it said that this must be so -
If by killing men and spilling blood,
By wasting souls, and preaching murder,
By following evil counsels, and raising fires,
By ruining noblemen and besmirching paratge,
By pillaging the country, and by exalting Pride,
By stoking up wickedness and stifling good,
By massacring women and their infants,
A man can win Jesus in this world,
then Simon surely wears a crown, resplendent in heaven.

Amaury VI de Montfort

Amaury
VI de Montfort (1195-1241) was the son of Simon de Montfort and
Alice of Montmorency, and the elder brother of another Simon de
Montfort.

Amaury de Montfort accompanied his father Simon and mother Alix
de Montmorency on the Crusade against the gathers. He was just
a boy at the beginning of the war, but was 18 and ready to become
a knight by 1213. His knighthood was notable as it marked an important
transition. Making a knight had been a rough-and-ready secular
ceremony, but Simon turned the ceremony into a religious one,
performed during a mass at the alter, and referring to passages
in the Old Testament where God requires the first born to be dedicated
to him. From now on knighthood would have a more distinctive Christian
character. The following account comes from the Historia:

[429] I will describe in detail the the procedure used
for the Count's son's installation as a knight of Christ, since
it was new and without precedent.

[430]The Count's eldest son becomes a knight. In the year of
the Incarnation of the Word 1213, the noble Count of Montfort
and numerous of his barons and knights gathered together at Castelnaudary
on the feast of the nativity of John the Baptist [24 June]. The
Count was accompanied by the two venerable bishops [of Auxerre
and Orleans] and some crusader knights. Our most Christian Count
wished the Bishop of Orleans to appoint his son a knight of Christ
and personally hand him the belt of knighthood. The bishop for
some time resisted this request but was at length vanquished by
the prayers of the Count and our people, and yielded to their
request. As it was summertime and Castelnaudary was too small
to hold the huge crowd in attendance (not least because it had
previously been destroyed once or even twice) the Count had a
number of pavilions erected on a pleasant level place nearby.

[431] On the day of the feast the Bishop of Orleans donned his
robes of office to celebrate a solemn mass in one of the pavilions.
Everyone, knights as well as clergy, gathered to hear the mass.
As the Bishop stood at the alter performing the mass, the Count
took Amaury, his eldest son, by his right hand, and the Countess
by his left hand; they approached the alter and offered him to
the Lord, requesting the Bishop to appoint him a knight in the
service of Christ. The Bishops of Orleans and Auxerre, bowing
before the alter, put the belt of knighthood round the youth,
and with great devotion led the Veni Creator Spiritus.
Indeed a novel and unprecedented form of induction into knighthood!
Who that was present could not refrain from tears? In this way,
with great ceremony, Amaury became a knight.

(Peter of les Vaux-de-Cernay, translated by WA & MD Sibly,
The History of The Albigensian Crusade)

Simon died on 25th June 1218 while besieging Toulouse. During a
typically brave action to retrieve a siege engine called a "cat"
he was struck full on the head by a stone from a trebuchet, traditionally
claimed to have been operated by the women of Toulouse. Amaury had
participated in the Albigensian Crusade under his father's command.
Now he inherited the County of Toulouse, and was elected as the
new leader of the Crusade, as the people of the Languedoc celebrated
his father's death.

Amaury could not fill his father's shoes. Only with the help
of France could he avoid utter defeat. Amaury ceded formal
rights to his territories to King Louis
VIII in 1224. He removed his father's body from the Cathedral
at Carcassonne
(probably fearing what would happen to it if he left it there) and
took it with him to his ancestral home near Paris.

In 1230 Amaury became Constable of France, an office previously
held by his uncle Mathieu II of Montmorency.

In 1239 he participated in the Sixth Crusade and was taken prisoner
after the defeat at Gaza. He was imprisoned in Cairo and was freed
in 1241, but died the same year in Calabria while on his way home.

Amaury VI de Montfort, based on the image
in Chartres Cathedral ?

Amaury VI de Montfort, Chartres Cathedral

Amaury VI de Montfort, Chartres Cathedral

Amaury VI de Montfort by Henry Scheffer (1798-1862)

Dominic Guzmán (c 1170 - 1221)
"Saint Dominic" (1234)

Dominic Guzmán, came from Caleruega in Castile. His parents,
Felix Guzmán and Joanna of Aza, belonged to the nobility
of Spain. According to later stories, his birth and infancy were
attended by many marvels forecasting his great sanctity. In 1184
Saint Dominic entered the University of Palencia, where he remained
for ten years. We do not know the date of his ordination, but he
became a cannon of the Cathedral of Osma in 1195.

Passing through the Midi on his way back from Denmark in 1205 he
started preaching against the Cathars of the Languedoc. He
had planned, (with the help of God, he said) to convert Cathars
to the Roman faith by preaching to them. Despite God's help
his preaching proved a failure.

Spurred by his lack of success he hit on the idea of using schools
to teach people the Catholic faith - one of many ideas he was to
copy from the Cathars. At this time the Catholic Church did not
normally encourage education for the laity, and indeed actively
discouraged it, especially for women. But the Languedoc was a special
case. Dominic founded a convent at Sainte Marie de Prouille (near
to Fanjeaux),
a Catholic version of a Cathar convent at Dun (between Pamiers and
Mirapoix) founded by Philippa, wife of the Count of Foix. Dominic's
establishment was in effect the first Dominican
nunnery.

The Church also tried open debates as a way of winning converts.
Debates were permitted because the Roman clergy thought that they
could humiliate the opposition intellectually and so facilitate
mass defections to the Roman Church. This did not happen.

The Colloquy of Montréal in 1207 was the final debate in Pamiers
between the Catholics (represented by Dominic Guzmán) and
the Cathars (notably Benoît de Termes).
Once again the the Roman Church made no progress, and if anything
confirmed its role as a figure of fun and reservoir of ignorance
and bigotry. When a highly respected noblewoman, Esclarmonde
of Foix (the Count's sister), a
Parfaite, tried to speak she was admonished by one of Dominic
Guzmán's acolytes (Etienne de Metz): "go to your spinning
madam. It is not proper for you to speak in a debate of this
sort". Such attitudes voiced in front of a liberal educated
audience succeeded only in confirming the extent of the gulf between
the Roman Church and the general population of the Languedoc.
In any case, even with God's personal help, the Roman Church once
again failed to secure mass conversions, or indeed any conversions
at all among the Parfaits.

Guzmán was humiliated by his failure. More vigorous
action was called for. The great Bernard of Clairvaux (St Bernard)
had asserted that "The Christian glories in the death of a
pagan, because Christ is thereby glorified". Were not heretics
even worse than pagans, even more deserving of death. Speaking on
behalf of Christ, Guzmán promised the Cathars slavery and
death.

Dominic Guzmán's promises were made good by Crusaders
and the Inquisition.
Dominic was a friend and companion of the famously brutal Simon
de Montfort. We find him by de Montfort's side at the siege
of Lavaur
in 1211, and at the capture of La Penne d'Ajen in 1212. In the latter
part of 1212 he was at Pamiers at the invitation of de Montfort.
Before the battle of Muret
on 12th September, 1213, Guzmán participated in the council
of war that preceded the battle. Like most crusades, the one against
the Cathars of the Languedoc was characterised by atrocities and
unimaginable barbarity as at Béziers,
Bram,
Lavaur,
and Marmande

In 1214 Dominic Guzmán returned to Toulouse. By this time
he had attracted a small group of disciples. He had never forgotten
his purpose, formulated eleven years before, of founding a religious
order. Dominic had several times been offered, and had refused,
the office of bishop. He had bigger plans.

Foulques, the Bishop of Toulouse, made him chaplain of Fanjeaux
and in July, 1215, where he established the community whose mission
was the propagation of the Roman Catholic faith and the extermination
of heretics. In this same year a wealthy citizen of Toulouse put
a house at their disposal. In this way the first convent of the
Order of Preachers was founded on 25th April 1215. A year later
Foulques established them in the church of Saint Romanus.

Dominic had dreamed of a world-wide Order. In November, 1215, a
General Council (The Fourth Lateran) was to meet at Rome "to
deliberate on the improvement of morals, the extinction of heresy,
and the strengthening of the faith". Dominic was present at
its deliberations hoping to win permission to establish his new
Order. The council was opposed to the institution of any new religious
orders, and legislated to that effect. Dominic's petition was refused.

This reversal did not stop Dominic. He simply found a way around
what the Catholic Church holds to be an infallible ruling. Returning
to Languedoc at the close of the Council in December, 1215, Dominic
and his followers adopted the rule of St
Augustine, which, because of its generality, could be adapted
to any form Dominic might wish to give it. His new order a fait
accompli, Dominic applied to the new pope Honorius III in August,
1216. On 22 December, 1216, a Bull of confirmation was issued. He
became a favourite of the new pope. The following year he received
the office and title of Master of the Sacred Palace, or as
it is more commonly called, the Pope's Theologian, In 1217
he formulated a plan to disperse his seventeen followers over all
Europe. The following year, to facilitate the spread of the order,
Honorius III, addressed a Bull to all archbishops, bishops, abbots,
and priors, requesting their favour on behalf of Dominic's new Order.
By another Bull later in 1218 Honorius bestowed on the order the
church of Saint Sixtus in Rome, which thus became the first monastery
of the Order in Rome. Shortly after taking possession of this church,
Dominic was given the apparently difficult task of cleaning up the
activities of Catholic nuns in Rome. As the Catholic Encyclopedia
gnomically puts it " Dominic began the somewhat difficult task
of restoring the pristine observance of religious discipline among
the various Roman communities of women".

With the support of the pope, Dominic next started a campaign of
rapid expansion of his Order, attracting large numbers of followers
keen to be associated with a movement sponsored by the papacy. A
foundation near the University of Paris was followed by another
at the University of Bologna where the church of Santa Maria della
Mascarella was placed at the disposal of the Dominicans.
In Rome the basilica of Santa Sabina was handed over to them. Next
a convent was established at Lyons and then a monastery in Spain.
Next came a convent for women at Madrid, similar to the one at Prouille.
Then a convent at the University of Palencia, and a house in Barcelona,
followed by houses at Limoges, Metz, Reims, Poitiers, and Orléans,
then Bergamo, Asti, Verona, Florence, Brescia, and Faenza.. In March
1219 Honorius bestowed upon the Order the church of San Eustorgio
in Milan. At the same time a foundation at Viterbo was authorised.

In Lombardy large numbers of people were abandoning the Roman Catholic
Church for the Cathar Church, as they had done a few years earlier
in the Languedoc. Honorius III addressed letters to the abbeys and
priories of San Vittorio, Sillia, Mansu, Floria, Vallombrosa, and
Aquila, ordering that members be deputed to begin a preaching crusade
under the leadership of Saint Dominic. As it turned out no support
was forthcoming, and despite propaganda to the contrary involving
a series of wondrous miracles, Dominic's mission failed. As in the
Languedoc, those who committed the crime of choosing a religion
for themselves would eventually be extirpated by Dominican
Inquisitors.

Towards the end of 1220 Dominic returned to Rome. Here he received
more concessions for his order. In January, February, and March
of 1221 three consecutive Bulls were issued commending the order
to all the prelates of the Church.

In 1234 at Bologna he contracted an illness and died three weeks
later. In a Bull dated 13 July, 1234, Gregory IX declared him a
saint and made his cult obligatory throughout the Church.

Many churchmen had been keen participants in the extirpation of
a rival faith, but none exceeded the zeal of Dominic Guzmán.
His faithful Dominicans
spawned the Medieval Inquisition,
with all its horrors, pioneering new methods of torture and creating
new crimes. Ordinances were passed which imposed new penalties for
heresy. In 1233 Pope, Gregory IX charged the Dominican
Inquisition
with the final solution: the absolute extirpation of the Cathars.
It was the beginning of the first modern police state in the world.

The role of Dominic himself is debated. When the Catholic Church
was less sensitive about the record of the Inquisition,
Dominic was hailed as its founder and his role as an Inquisitor
was undoubted.

The painting on the left, by Berruguete, previously hung in the
Sacristy of the Dominican
monastery of Santo Tomás de Ávila (founded by the
Dominican
Thomas Torquemada, Inquisitor General of Spain). Berruguete painted
panels on the life of Dominic Guzman which originally formed part
of an altarpiece in the monastery, and this panel may have been
one of these. The figures are dressed in the style of the late 15th
century and are thought to have been inspired by autos-da-fe that
took place in Ávila at this period. Saint Dominic, recognisable
by his mantle ornamented with stars, is seated on a throne presiding
over the tribunal, surrounded by other judges, one of them bearing
the standard of the Inquisition.
Below, two of Dominic's victims are tied to stakes awaiting their
fate, being burned alive, having been sentenced by Saint Dominic.

As the record of the Inquisition
becomes more ever more out of step with modern sensibilities, there
has been a tendency on the part of the Catholic Church to dissociate
Dominic from his role as father of the Medieval Inquisition
- sometimes pointing out that earlier Inquisitions
had existed (suggesting that he could not therefore be the founder
of "The Inquisition"),
sometimes that the Medieval Inquisition
was not given formal papal sanction until after his death (suggesting
that "The Inquisition"
did not exist in his lifetime, so he could not have been any part
of it).

A third option for exculpation is employed by the Catholic Encyclopedia
under the entry on Saint Dominic "If he was for a certain time
identified with the operations of the Inquisition,
it was only in the capacity of a theologian passing judgement upon
the orthodoxy of the accused. Whatever influence he may have had
with the judges of that much maligned institution was always employed
on the side of mercy and forbearance, as witness the classic case
of Ponce Roger [sic]." This does not square easily on several
counts with Dominic's own letter concerning Pons Roger, which shows
Dominic acting as a Papal Inquisitor, (commissioned by Arnaud
Amaury, on behalf of the Pope). Nor does the letter show him
as as being particularly merciful, forbearing or lenient - (see
box to the right). To resolve any possible doubt the Dominican
master-Inquisitor Bernard
Gui (I26I-I33I) in his Life of St. Dominic explicitly
claims for Saint Dominic the title of First Inquisitor.

Sir Steven Runciman on the Dominicans,
referring to the period after the Treaty of Meaux (or Treaty
of Paris) in 1227:

The Dominicans were allowed to set up their Inquisition
at Toulouse, at Albi and at Narbonne; large numbers of heretics
were arrested and examined and the majority of them were
burnt.

Dominic is now venerated as St Dominic, and is regarded by many
Christians as one of the most holy men ever to have lived.
Dominic's legacy has certainly been spectacular. As well as running
various Inquisitions,
Dominicans
monopolised medieval philosophy leading it into the barren desert
of scholasticism where it languished until revived by Enlightenment
thinkers, not a single significant advance having been made for
centuries (except, arguably, by heretical Franciscans).

Modern Dominicans consistently deny that Dominic ever exercised
the office of Inquisitor, pointing out that the Papal Inquisition
was formally constituted only after Dominic's death. Some see this
as perhaps a little disingenouous, since Inquisitors were operating
on the authority of papal legates under Innocent III well before
the institution of the Inquisition reporting directly to the Pope
was given a formal charter. Below is conclusive evidence that Dominic
was an authorised Inquisitor even before the start of the Wars against
the Cathars in 1209.

For Cathars who chose not to deny their faith the penalty
was death. So too for those who recanted but then returned
to their chosen faith. For confessed first-offender heretics
judgements were less harsh - often in the form of penances
- but with a more severe reserve judgement if the penances
were not fulfilled. This letter was written by Dominic about
the year 1208 and concerns a converted Cathar called Pons
Roger.

Brother Dominic, Canon of Osma, the Least Among Preachers,
Sends Greetings in Christ to All of His Faithful to Whom
This Letter Comes,

By the authority of the Lord Abbot of Cîteaux, Legate
of the Apostolic See, who enjoined this function on us,
we reconcile the bearer of this letter, Pons Roger, who
has, by God's mercy, been converted from the sect of the
heretics.

In virtue of the Sacrament which has been administered,
we command that, three Sundays or days of major feasts,
a priest march him, stripped to the waist and under continuous
flogging, from the entrance to the city to the church. Moreover,
we command him to abstain at all times from meat, eggs,
and cheeses, or all things which are conceived from the
seed of flesh, except on Easter Sunday, Pentecost Sunday,
and Christmas, when, for the rejection of his former error,
we command him to eat these things. He should keep three
Lents each year, fasting and abstaining from fish. Three
days every week, perpetually, he should fast and abstain
from fish, olive-oil, and wine, unless bodily infirmity
or summer heat makes a dispensation necessary. He should
wear clothes which are religious in both their style and
colour, with a small cross sewed on each side over the breast.
If it is opportune, he should hear Mass daily and, on major
feast days, he should go to church for Vespers. Wherever
he may be, he should praise God at all hours of night and
day in the following way: seven times a day he should say
the Our Father ten times, at midnight, twenty. He should
observe total chastity and live at Treveille. He should
show this letter to his chaplain every month. Moreover,
we command the chaplain to supervise his life with diligent
care, until the Lord Legate otherwise expresses his will
on these matters. Should he refuse to observe these directives,
we command that he be deemed a perjurer and a heretic excommunicated
from association with the faithful.

The Latin text can be found in Balme and Lelaidier, Cartulaire,
Vol. I, pp. 186-88. There several notable points in this letter:

1. The phrase "By the authority of the Lord Abbot of
Citeaux, Legate of the Apostolic See, who enjoined this function
on us ..." can only be a reference to Dominic's role
as an Inquisitor. No other role fits the circumstances.

2. Most of the penances oblige Pons Roger to live in the
same manner as a Cathar Parfait. There are several theories
as why Dominic should have required Pons Roger to do this,
but they lie outside of the present discussion. Note also
the use of the word "command". Genuine penance is
by definition voluntary.

3. Sentences of death were rarely committed to writing, but
we know that Inquisitors were responsible for burning countless
people to death. This sentence has survived possibly because
it was passed on someone who was now a Catholic. "Should
he refuse to observe these directives, we command that he
be deemed a perjurer and a heretic excommunicated from association
with the faithful." This is a conditional death sentence.
A relapsed and excommunicated heretic would be burned alive.
Note also the use of the word "command" again, this
time the command is to a third party - something an Inquisitor
could do but a simple preacher could not.

Dominic's canonisation in 1234 was marked by a revealing incident
at Toulouse. The bishop, Raimon de Fauga, and a number of Dominican
friars had just solemnly celebrated the admission of their new Saint
into heaven. As they were leaving the church for a celebratory feast,
news arrived that a dying woman in the city had just received the
Cathar Consolamentum.
The bishop, the Dominican
prior and his Dominican retinue promptly set off to deal with this
crime. They found the woman at home in bed, gravely ill.

The men of God entered the house where she lay dying. In her delirium
she mistook the Catholic bishop for a Cathar bishop and confessed
to him her wish to die a good death. At this, and without any sort
of trial, the bishop had her removed from the house. Lying on her
deathbed, she was carried to a nearby field and there burned alive
still in her bed. Their holy mission complete the bishop, prior
and friars retired to enjoy their celebratory banquet, having first
given thanks "to God and the Blessed Dominic". The Inquisitor
Guillaume de Pélhisson recorded the event, pointing out that
" God performed these works ... to the glory and praise of
His name ... to the exaltation of the Faith and to the discomfiture
of the heretics". As both Catholics and non-Catholics have
observed at different times, it was a most suitable way to mark
Dominic Guzman's canonisation.

The quotation is from Guillaume de Pélhisson,
Chronicle, translated by Walter L Wakefield, Heresy,
Crusade and Inquisition in Southern France 1100-1250,
University of California, Berkeley, 1974, pp 215-16.

Dominc Guzman's own record is recognised in the special language
of the Catholic Encyclopedia, which sometimes appears carefully
crafted to carry a subtly different message to the devout reader
than it does to those familiar with history:

"While his charity was boundless he never permitted it to
interfere with the stern sense of duty that guided every action
of his life. If he abominated heresy and laboured untiringly for
its extirpation it was because he loved truth and loved the souls
of those among whom he laboured".

From a secular point of view there was no harm at all in the Cathars,
and no reason for them to be even mildly persecuted, let alone burned
alive. Yet it is not difficult to find Roman Catholic authorities
who seek to justify the Church's genocide and make out that it acted
for the best. This is as close as the Catholic Encyclopaedia
comes to admitting fault:

Ecclesiastical authority, after persuasion had failed,
adopted a course of severe repression, which led at times to regrettable
excess.

A Handbook of Heresies, approved by a Roman Catholic Censor
and bearing the Imprimatur of the Vicar General at Westminster,
refers to Guzmán's "heroic exercise of fraternal charity".
His failure as a preacher is not mentioned, nor the fact that even
using trickery and torture almost no Parfaits
could be induced to abandon their faith. The thousands of
Cathar deaths are not referred to except in the most oblique terms:

The long and arduous task was at length successful, and by the
end of the fourteenth century Albigensianism, with all other forms
of Catharism, was practically extinct.

And the opportunity is taken to condemn Cahar beliefs once again:

This anti-human heresy, by destroying the sanctity of the family,
would reduce mankind to a horde of unclean beasts....

Dominic's Preaching Friars (Dominicans)
and their Inquisition
were soon operating throughout Europe, introducing their Inquisitorial
techniques to new lands: The following text is from a record
of the deeds of the Archbishops of Trier contemporary with
the events described.

In the year of our Lord 1231 began a persecution of heretics
throughout the whole of Germany, and over a period of three
years many were burned. The guiding genius of this persecution
was Master Conrad of Marburg; ...

Throughout various cities the Preaching Friars cooperated
with him and with his aforementioned lieutenants; so great
was the zeal of all that from no one, even though merely
under suspicion, would any excuse or counter plea be accepted,
no exception or testimony be admitted, no opportunity for
defense be afforded, nor even a recess for deliberation
be allowed. Forthwith, he must confess himself guilty and
have his head shaved as a sign of penance, or deny his crime
and be burned. Furthermore, one who has thus been shaved
must make known his associates, otherwise he again risks
the penalty of death by burning.

... in accordance with the decision pronounced by the Lord
Pope, he [Conrad] proceeded against defenders and receivers
of heretics exactly as against heretics themselves. Furthermore,
if anyone had once abjured this impiety and was reported
to have relapsed, he was apprehended and without any reconsideration
was burned.

There is not a hint of remorse or regret for the holocaust, and
one can only assume that, if it could, the Roman Church would act
in the same way again if similar circumstances arose in the future,
lead perhaps by another charismatic leader like Saint Dominic.

As Dominicans have become reticent about tradional aspects
of their Catholic faith, attempts have been made to minimise
associations with practices such as mortification of the
flesh, Inquisitions, torture, auto-da-fes, exuming and burning
the dead, and persecuting Jews. Another of these traditional
Christian practices was slavery. Dominicans were major slave
owners in Spanish, Portuguese and French territories. A
prime slave colony on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola
(what is now Haiti) was associated with and previously named
in honour of saint Dominic. The economy of Saint-Domingue
was based on slavery, and the practice there was known as
the most brutal in the world. Escaped slaves there were
burned at the stake. The colony known as Saint-Domingue,
or French Santo Domingo, was a French colony from 1659 to
1809. Under Article 3 of the famous Code Noir, only Catholics
were permitted to own slaves. The present capital of Haiti
is still named after its patron saint, Saint Dominic.

The birth of Dominic Guzman from a Vatican
Manuscript, the Legendarium from Hungary, circa 1330. Note
the fire breathing dog - a portent. His noble mother wears
a crown. He wears ahalo (originally silver ?). From the Early
Life of St. Dominic, Legendarium, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana
(Vatican City), Vat. lat. 8541, fol. 90v

The Catholic Encyclopedia, in
its article devoted to St. Dominic, gives the Catholic
view of Cathar foundations run by Cathar noblewomen:

These women erected convents, to which the children
of the Catholic nobility were often sent  for
want of something better  to receive an education,
and, in effect, if not on purpose, to be tainted with
the spirit of heresy. It was needful, too, that women
converted from heresy should be safeguarded against
the evil influence of their own homes. To supply these
deficiencies, Saint Dominic, with the permission of
Foulques, Bishop of Toulouse, established a convent
at Prouille in 1206. To this community, and afterwards
to that of Saint Sixtus, at Rome, he gave the rule
and constitutions which have ever since guided the
nuns of the Second Order of Saint Dominic.

A recurring miracle in Catholic Tradition is one in
which it proves impossible to burn holy scripture, while
heretical works burn like any other books. It is essentially
the same miracle as that applied by the medieval Church
to humans in certain forms of Trial By Fire.

According to some sources, this miracle occurred at
an early Church Council, and enabled the council to
establish the correct books to include in the New Testament.

A similar miracle was attributed to Dominic at Fanjeaux,
where his writings were immune from the flames, and
it seems that this miracle is still credited. The Catholic
Encyclopedia under the entry at Saint Dominic refers
to "The failure of the fire at Fanjeaux
to consume the dissertation he had employed against
the heretics, and which was thrice thrown into the flames".
See painting on the left. Dominic wears a halo (technically
an auriole). An heretical book burns while while the
holy one miraculously levitates above the flames.

Voltaire noted how unfortunate it was that this sort
of miracle no longer seems to be available to distinguish
holy writings from any other.

St Dominic prays in the traditional manner
with St Francis behind him. From the Early Life of St. Dominic
Legendarium, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (Vatican City),
Vat. Lat. 8541, fol. 90v

Saint Dominic was a proponent of the scourge
or "discipline" to mortify the flesh. Here he is
flagellating himself with iron chains.
Penitent St. Dominic, by Alonso Florin, 1621

In
the 1960s a Belgian Dominican
nun known as The Singing Nun had a hit record with a song
called Dominique, all about Guzmán's life, including
his role in crushing Catharism in the Languedoc - the song has him
converting a heretic, which is perhaps less than a full representation
of historical reality. The song was a number 1 hit in the
UK and the USA. Its jolly tune provides a bizarre counterpoint to
the reality of Guzmán's life, his war mongering, his Dominican
Order and the horrors of the Inquisition.
The Singing Nun committed suicide in 1985.

Dominic, my good Father, keep us simple and
happy
To announce to our brothers the Life and the Truth

Refrain

Refrain

Bernard of Clairvaux (1090  1153),
Saint Bernard (1174)

Bernard had been dead for half a century by the start of the Cathar
Crusade - but he was an important figure in the Catholic Church
when the Cathar "heresy" in the Languedoc first attracted
attention. His influence was felt in many ways during the Crusade.

Bernard was born at Fontaines, near Dijon, in France. His father,
a knight, died on crusade. His mother died while Bernard was still
a child. His guardians sent him to study at Châtillon-sur-Seine
in order to qualify him for high ecclesiastical office and he joined
the community at Cîteaux in 1098. The community of reformed
Benedictines at Cîteaux grew so rapidly that it was soon able
to set up daughter establishments. One of these daughter monasteries,
Clairvaux, was founded in 1115, in a valley of a tributary of the
river Aube. Bernard, a recent initiate, was appointed abbot. Clairvaux
became the chief monastery of one of the five branches into which
the order was divided under the direction of the Abbot of Cîteaux.
Bernard became the primary builder of the Cistercian
monastic order.

In 1128 he was invited to the synod of Troyes, where he was instrumental
in obtaining the recognition of the new order of Knights Templar,
the rules of which he is said to have drawn up. The Templars were
essentially fighting Cistercian
monks.

Saint Bernard (with the halo) accepting a
new recruit into the Cistercian Order, while Cistercian nuns
also accept a new recruit

His was the main voice of conservatism during the 12th century
Renaissance. Bernard was the prosecutor at Peter Abelard's trial
for heresy. Bernard had been hostile to Peter Abelard and other
scholars at the University of Paris, the center of the new learning
based on Aristotle. Abelard was one of the greatest - arguably the
greatest - scholastic philosopher of the Middle Ages. Bernard, not
an intellectual himself, found it objectionalble that people should
learn "merely in order that they might know". For Bernard,
education served a single purpose: the indoctrination of priests.
The trial was not determined by the strength of the cases put forward
by the prosecution and the defence. When Abelard lost he appealed
to Rome where Bernard's word was enough to confirm his condemnation.
Abelard died soon afterwards.

Towards the middle of the twelfth century the preaching of a priest
called Henry of Lausanne was drawing attention to what he saw as
flaws in Roman Catholic theology and practices. In June 1145, at
the invitation of Cardinal Alberic of Ostia, Bernard would travel
to the territories of the Count of Toulouse to combat heresy. The
threat was not at this time perceived as Catharism,
but the teachings of Henry who had come to Occitania
having been, as Bernard said, "forced to flee from all parts
of France". Here is a translation of an extract from a letter
from St Bernard to Alphonse
Jordan, Count of Toulouse, written in 1145 before he set off
to follow Henry to the Languedoc. It gives an idea of how popular
Henry's taching had been.

The Churches are without congregations, congregations are without
priests, priests are without proper reverence, and, finally, Christians
are without Christ.

Bernards's secretary, Geoffrey of Auxerre, writing in the same
year repeats Bernard's comments and goes on:

The life of Christ was barred to the children of Christians so
long as the grace of baptism was denied to them. Prayers and offerings
for the dead were ridiculed as were the invocation of saints,
pilgrimages by the faithful, the building of temples, holidays
on holy days, the anointing with the chrism; and in a word, all
the institutions of the [Catholic] Church were scorned.

With
the invective removed it sounds as though the Reformation has arrived
in the Languedoc some three centuries before Martin Luther introduced
it to Germany. After his visit, Bernard's main impression seems
to have been the shameless corruption in his own Church. The
people of the Languedoc had abandoned the Roman Catholic Church
en mass for unnamed heresies:

... if you question the heretic about his faith, nothing is more
Christian; if about his daily converse, nothing more blameless;
and what he says he proves by his actions ... As regards his life
and conduct, he cheats no one, pushes ahead of no one, does violence
to no one. Moreover, his cheeks are pale with fasting; he does
not eat the bread of idleness; he labours with his hands and thus
makes his living ... Women are leaving their husbands, men are
putting aside their wives, and they all flock to those heretics!
Clerics and priests, the youthful and the adult among them, are
leaving their congregations and churches and are often found in
the company of weavers of both sexes.

Although he does not mention the word Cathar, there are several
indications here that Bernard is referring to Cathars: living the
Christian ideal; pale through fasting; working for a living; appealing
equally to men, women, and Catholic priests. The term "weaver"
is frequently used as a synonym for Cathar
Parfait, since this was their most favoured itinerant trade.
Bernard may have had some sympathy for the Cathars. He never said
so explicitly, but he did share some of their views. The world had
no meaning for him save as a place of banishment and trial, in which
men are but "strangers and pilgrims" (Serm.
i., Epiph. n. I; Serm. vii., Lent. n. I). The words could
have been taken from a Cathar instruction manual.

Despite any sympathy he might have had, he was happy enough to
see those whom he saw as his enemies destroyed. Speaking of heretics,
he held that "it would without doubt be better that they should
be coerced by the sword than that they should be allowed to draw
away many other persons into their error." (Serm.
lxvi. on Canticles ii. 15). Killing god's enemies was not
merely permitted, but glorious. He asserted in a letter to the Templars
"The Christian who slays the unbeliever in the Holy War is
sure of his reward, the more sure if he himself is slain. The Christian
glories in the death of the pagan, because Christ is thereby glorified".
He also pointed out that anyone who kills an unbeliever does not
commit homicide but malicide (St Bernard, De
Laude Novae Militiae, III (De Militibus Christi). For
him all infidels were creatures of Satan. After being asked about
how heretics could bear the agony of the fire not only with patience
but even with joy, Bernard answered the question in a sermon where
he ascribed the steadfastness of heretical "dogs" in facing
death to the power of the devil. (Serm. lxvi. on
Canticles ii. 15).

Bernard played the leading role in the development of the cult
of the Virgin Mary - which many historians have seen as an attempt
to counter the prominent role of women in new movements - notably
those of the troubadours
and the Cathars.

Bernard preached the Second Crusade. His eloquence was extraordinarily
successful. At the meeting at Vézelay after Bernard's sermon
many of all classes took the cross, most notably King Louis VII
of France and his then queen, Eleanor
of Aquitaine. It was said that when Bernard preached, women
went in fear. Mothers hid their sons from him, wives their husbands,
and companions their friends. Bernard proudly informed the Pope
of his success in preaching a crusade: "I opened my mouth;
I spoke; and at once the crusaders have multiplied to infinity.
Villages and towns are now deserted. You will scarcely find one
man for every seven women. Everywhere you will see widows whose
husbands are still alive". His patter was reminiscent of that
of a high-pressure salesman selling to credulous punters:

But to those of you who are merchants, men quick to seek
a bargain, let me point out the advantages of this great opportunity.
Do not miss them. Take up the sign of the cross and you will find
indulgence for all sins that you humbly confess. The cost is small,
the reward is great.

Actually the cost was death. Most of those women were soon to become
real widows for the crusader army was chopped to pieces in Anatolia
before getting anywhere near to the Holy Land. The disastrous outcome
of the crusade was a blow to Bernard, who found it difficult to
understand why God would let his own army down like this. Perhaps
the best solution was that the outcome had been a great success
after all, because it had transferred so many Christian warriors
from God's earthly army to his heavenly one. Not everyone was convinced.
The disaster was so severe that Christians throughout Europe started
considering the ultimate blasphemy - that after all God might be
on the side of the Moslems.

On receiving the news of the catastrophe, an effort was made to
organise another crusade. Bernard attended a meeting at Chartres
in 1150 convened for this purpose. He was elected to lead the new
crusade, but Pope Eugene III failed to endorse him or his project,
and it came to nothing.

Fulk came from a Genoese merchant family in Marseille. He was also
a wealthy citizen with some renoun. A contemporary (John of Garlande)
later described him as "renowned on account of his spouse,
his progeny, and his home." A troubadour,
and known as Folquet, he began composing songs in the 1170s and
was known to Raymond Geoffrey II of Marseille, Richard the Lionheart,
Raymond V of Toulouse, Raymond-Roger
of Foix, Alfonso II of Aragon and William VIII of Montpellier.

His love songs were lauded by Dante. There are 14 surviving cansos,
one tenson, a lament, an invective, three crusading songs and one
religious song (although its authorship is disputed). Like other
troubadours,
he was credited by biographies of the Troubadours with having conducted
love affairs with noblewomen about whom he sang (and with causing
William VIII of Montpellier to divorce his wife, Eudocia Comnena).

Folquet's life changed around 1195 when he renounced his former
ways and abandoned his family for the Catholic Church. He joined
the Cistercian
Order and entered the monastery of Thoronet (Var, France). He placed
his wife and two sons in monastic institutions as well.

He soon rose in prominence as a Cistercian
and was elected abbot of Thoronet. As abbot he helped found the
sister house of Géménos to house women, possibly including
his abandoned wife.

A few years later Papal legates - fellow Cistercians
- deposed the Bishop of Toulouse,
Raymond (Ramon) de Rabastens, and were probably instrumental in
arranging Folquet's nomination for the position in 1205.

As Bishop of Toulouse,
Folquet (now referred to as Fulk, sometimes Fulk of Toulouse (Folquet
de Tolosa, Foulques de Toulouse) took an active role in combating
Catharism, the favoured religion of the area. Throughout his Episcopal
career he sought to encourage Catholic religious enthusiasm and
suppress other forms of Christianity (primarily Cathar
and Waldensian).
In 1206 he created what would later become the convent of Prouille
near to Fanjeaux
to offer women a religious community that would rival similar existing
nearby Cathar institutions.

When a preaching mission led by his fellow Cistercians
failed to make any impression other than attracting popular derision,
he participated in a preaching mission led by Bishop Diego of Osma.
He continued to support this new form of preaching after Bishop
Diego's death by supporting Diego's successor Dominic
de Guzmán (later Saint
Dominic) and his followers, eventually allotting them property
and a portion of the tithes of Toulouse
to ensure their continued success. (They soon developed into the
Dominican
Order and Prouille
became a Dominican
convent).

Because of his abrasive style, Bishop Fulk had tumultuous relations
with his diocese, exacerbated by his support of the Cathar
Crusade, widely perceived then as now as a war of aggression
against Toulouse
and the whole region - then independent but annexed to France when
the aggression proved successful.

He was present at the siege of Lavaur
in April-May 1211, which ended in a massacre; he then travelled
north to France, where he preached the
Albigensian Crusade alongside a fellow Cistercian
Guy of les Vaux-de-Cernay. He then returned to the south, participating
in the Council of Pamiers in November 1212, in the Council of Lavaur
in January 1213, in the meeting with King
Peter II of Aragon on 14 January 1213. He was present at the
Battle
of Muret on 12 September 1213, and at the Council of Montpellier
in January 1215. There he was instructed by the Papal legate, Peter
of Benevento, to take possession of the Château Narbonnais,
the
Count's residence, at Toulouse
and so returned to the city in February 1215.

In July 1215 Folk issued a diocesan letter instituting Dominic
Guzman's brotherhood of preachers which became the Domincan
Order. In November 1215 he and Dominic,
with Guy
de Montfort, attended the Fourth Lateran Council.

Toulousains rebelled in August 1216 against Simon
IV de Montfort, their new lord according to the Fourth Lateran
Council. Foulques' attempted settlement led to further violence.
He tried to relinquish his position but his requests to the pope
were declined.

In October 1217, when Simon
de Montfort was besieging Toulouse,
he sent a group of sympathisers to Paris to plead for the help of
the French king, Philippe
Augustus. This group included Fulk as well as Simon's wife,
the countess Alix de Montmorency. They returned in May 1218, bringing
a party of new Crusaders including Amaury de Craon. Fulk spent much
of the following decade outside his diocese, assisting the crusading
army and the Church's attempts to subdue the region. He was at the
Council of Sens in 1223.

After the Peace of Paris ended the Cathar Crusade in 1229, Fulk
returned to Toulouse
and began to construct further institutions - in addition to the
DominicanInquisition
- designed to control the region and extirpate the Cathars.
He helped to create the University of Toulouse
and also administered an Episcopal Inquisition.

He died in 1231 and was buried, beside the tomb of William VII
of Montpellier, at the Cistercian
abbey of Grandselves, near Toulouse,
where his sons, Ildefonsus and Petrus had been abbots.

Philip II, King of France:
(Philip Augustus, reigned 1180-1223).

Though pressured by Innocent
III to take an active role in the Crusade against the Cathars,
Philip repeatedly declined, though he did encourage his vassals
to join the crusade.

After a twelve years struggle with the Plantagenet dynasty, Philip
broke up the great Angevin Empire and defeated a coalition of
his rivals (German, Flemish and English) at the Battle of Bouvines
in 1214. This victory would have a lasting impact on western European
politics: the authority of the French king became unchallenged,
while the English king was forced by his barons to sign the Magna
Carta and faced a rebellion in which Philip and his son (the future
Louis VIII) intervened.

Philip was nicknamed "Augustus" by the chronicler Rigord
for having extended the royal demesne, the domains ruled directly
by the kings of France, as opposed to the territories ruled indirectly
by vassals of the king. Philip Augustus transformed France from
a small feudal state into the most prosperous and powerful country
in Europe.

"The burning [Supplice] of the Heretics
in 1210" Illustration from the illuminated manuscript
Grandes Chroniques de France depicting the burning of Amalrician
heretics before King Philip II of France. In the background
is the Gibbet of Montfaucon and, anachronistically, the Grosse
Tour of the Temple fortress. Jean Fouquet (1455-1460), Bibliothèque
nationale de France, Paris

Battle of Bouvines, 1214

Richard I and his sister Jeanne (or Joanna,
or Joan) greeting Philip Augustus, King of France

Louis VIII: (reigned 1223-1226).

Louis VIII, the Lion (5 September 1187  8 November 1226)
reigned from 1223 to 1226. He was also disputed King of England
from 1216 to 1217. Louis VIII was born in Paris, the son of Philip
II and Isabelle of Hainaut from whom he would inherit the County
of Artois.

While Louis VIII ruled as king for only three years, he was an
active leader in his years as Crown Prince. In 1215, the English
barons rebelled in the First Barons' War against the unpopular King
John of England (11991216). The barons offered the throne
to Prince Louis, who landed unopposed on the Isle of Thanet in eastern
Kent, England at the head of an army on 21 May 1216. There was little
resistance when the prince entered London and Louis was proclaimed
King at St Paul's Cathedral with great pomp and celebration in the
presence of all of London. Even though he was not crowned, many
nobles, as well as King Alexander II of Scotland, gathered to pay
homage. On 14 June 1216, Louis captured Winchester and soon controlled
over half of the kingdom. He was proclaimed "King of England"
in London on the 2 June 1216. Just as it seemed that England was
under his control, King John's death in October 1216 caused many
of the rebellious barons to desert Louis in favour of William Marshall,
Regent for John's nine-year-old son, Henry
III.

Under William Marshall, a call for the English "to defend
our land" against the French led to a reversal of fortunes
on the battlefield. After Louis' army was beaten at Lincoln on 20
May 1217, and his naval forces (led by Eustace the Monk) were defeated
off the coast of Sandwich on 24 August 1217, he was forced to make
peace on English terms. The principal provisions of the Treaty of
Lambeth were an amnesty for English rebels, Louis to undertake not
to attack England again, and 10,000 marks to be given to Louis as
a face-saving measure. The effect of the treaty was that Louis agreed
he had never been the legitimate King of England.

Before decamping back to France he stole the relics of Saint Edmund
the Martyr from the abbey at Bury-Saint-Edmunds, and would later
deposit them at Saint Sernin in Toulouse.

From 1209 to 1215 the Albigensian Crusade had been largely successful
for the northern forces, but this was followed by a series of local
rebellions from 1215 to 1225 that undid many of these earlier gains,
especially after the death of Simon de Montfort.

His English adventure over, Louis turned to fighting the Duke of
Aquitain (also Henry
III, King of England) and the Count of Toulouse. Louis VIII
started the conquest of Guyenne, leaving only a small region around
Bordeaux to Henry
III. Louis was a devout and keen crusader, and distinguished
himself by massacres that disturbed even his own war hardened troops,
notably when he oversaw the atrocity at Marmande
in 1219.

Louis VIII succeeded his father on 14 July 1223; his coronation
took place on 6 August of the same year in the cathedral at Reims.
As King, he continued to seek revenge on the Angevins, seizing Poitou
and Saintonge. In 1225, the council of Bourges excommunicated the
Count of Toulouse, Raymond
VII, and declared a renewed crusade against the people of the
Languedoc. Louis renewed the conflict in order to enforce his royal
rights, Amaury
de Montfort having sold his feudal rights to Louis. Roger
Bernard II (the Great), Count of Foix, tried to keep the peace,
but the king rejected his embassy and took up arms against the Counts
of Foix and the Count of Toulouse. The took Avignon after a three-month
siege, but he did not complete the conquest before his death. While
returning to Paris, King Louis VIII became ill with dysentery and
died in the Château de Montpensier, on Monday 8 November 1226.
The troubadour Guilhem Figueira commented in D'un sirventes far
en est son que m'agenssa "Rome, you killed good King Louis
because with your false preaching, you lured him away from Paris".
His son, Louis
IX (122670), succeeded him on the French throne.

Philip (9 September 1209  before July 1218), betrothed
in July 1215 to Agnes of Donzy.

Alphonse (b. and d. Lorrez-le-Bocage, 26 January 1213), twin
of John.

John (b. and d. Lorrez-le-Bocage, 26 January 1213), twin of
Alphonse.

Louis
IX (Poissy, 25 April 1214  25 August 1270, Tunis),
King of France as successor to his father.

Robert (25 September 1216  9 February 1250, killed in
battle, Manssurah, Egypt), Count of Artois.

Philip (20 February 1218 - 1220).[11]

John (21 July 1219 - 1232), Count of Anjou and Maine; betrothed
in March 1227 to Yolande of Brittany.

Alphonse (Poissy, 11 November 1220  21 August 1271,
Corneto), Count of Poitou and Auvergne. He married Jeanne of Toulouse,
daughter of Raymond VII and Jean of England. his mother, who was
regent of France, forced the Treaty of Paris on Raymond VII of
Toulouse. It stipulated that a brother of King Louis was to marry
Joan of Toulouse, daughter of Raymond VII of Toulouse, and so
in 1237 Alphonse married her. Since she was Raymond's only child,
they became rulers of Toulouse at Raymond's death in 1249.

Philip Dagobert (20 February 1222 - 1232[12]).

Isabelle (March 1224[13]  23 February 1270).

Etienne (end 1225[14] - early 1227[15]).

Charles (posthumously 21 March 1227  7 January 1285),
Count of Anjou and Maine, by marriage Count of Provence and Folcalquier,
and King of Sicily.

Coronation of Louis VIII and Blanche of Castile
at Reims in 1223, miniature from the Grandes Chroniques de
France, painted in the 1450s (Bibliothèque nationale
de France)

Blanche of Castile (1188-1252),
Regent of France (1226-1236)

Blanche
was the third daughter of Alphonso VIII, King of Castile, and
of Eleanor of England, daughter of Henry
II. Under a treaty between Philippe
Augustus and King
John of England, she had married Louis
VIII. When Philip died Louis, their son and the heir to
Kingdom of France (Louis
IX), was twelve years old. Blanche ruled as regent
until he came of age in 1236.

The regency of Blanche of Castile (1226-1234) was marked by
the victorious struggle of the Crown against her cousine Raymond
VII of Toulouse in the Languedoc, against Pierre Mauclerc
in Brittany, against Philip Hurepel in the Ile de France, and
by indecisive combats against Henry
III, King of England. In this period of disturbances the
queen was supported by the legate Frangipani, whith whom she
was widely roumoured to be engaged in a sexual relationship.

Accredited to Louis
VIII by Honorius III as early as 1225, Frangipani won over
to the French cause the sympathies of Gregory IX, who was inclined
to listen to Henry
II, and through his intervention it was decreed that all
the chapters of the dioceses should pay to Blanche of Castile
tithes for the Albigensian Crusade. It was the legate who received
the submission of Raymond
VII of Toulouse, at Paris, in front of Notre-Dame. This
submission put an end to the Albigensian war and prepared the
annexation of the Languedoc to France by the Treaty of Paris
(April 1229).

The influence of Blanche of Castile over the government extended
far beyond Saint
Louis' minority. Even later, in public business and when
ambassadors were officially received, she appeared at his side.
She died in 1253.

Louis
IX, Saint Louis, and his mother Blanche de Castille stained
glass in the nave of l'église Saint-Louis de Saint-Louis-en-l'Isle
in the Dordogne.

Blanche of Castile. Detail from Blanche of
Castile and King Louis IX of France in the Bible moralisée
de Tolède, dite bible de Saint-Louis, scène
de dédicace, circa 1220-1230, The Morgan Library &
Museum, Accession number M240

Louis IX: (1215-1270), St Louis,
King of France (1236-1270)

Louis IX, King of France, was the son of Louis
VIII and Blanche
of Castile, born at Poissy, 25 April, 1215. He ded near Tunis
on 25 August, 1270.

The regency of Blanche
of Castile (1226-1234) had been marked by the victorious struggle
of the Crown against Raymond VII. In the first years of the
king's personal government, the Crown fought off an attack led by
the Count de la Marche, in league with Raymond's close relative,
Henry
III, King of England. King
Louis IX's victory over this coalition at Taillebourg, 1242,
destroyed any hope of success for the uprising planned in Ramon
VII's territories to expel the French invaders.

He was eleven years of age when the death of Louis
VIII made him king, and nineteen when he married Marguerite
of Provence by whom he had eleven children. The regency of Blanche
of Castile (1226-1234) was marked by the victorious struggle
of the Crown against Raymond
VII of Toulouse in the Languedoc, against Pierre Mauclerc in
Brittany, against Philip Hurepel in the Ile de France, and against
Henry
III, King of England. In this period of disturbances the queen
was supported by the papal legate Frangipani. Accredited to Louis
VIII by Honorius III as early as 1225, Frangipani won over to
the French cause the sympathies of Gregory IX, who had been inclined
to listen to Henry
III. Through his intervention it was decreed that all the chapters
of the dioceses should pay tithes to Blanche
of Castile to continue the Albigensian Crusade. It was the legate
who received the submission of Raymond
VII at Paris, in front of Notre-Dame. For the time being, this
submission put an end to the Albigensian war and prepared the way
for the annexexation of the Languedoc by France under the Treaty
of Meaux-Paris in April 1229.

In the first years of the king's personal government, the Crown
had to combat a fresh uprisings against French rule, led by the
Count de la Marche, in league with Henry
III of England. Saint
Louis' victory over this coalition at Taillebourg, 1242, was
followed by the Peace of Bordeaux which annexed to the French kingdom
a part of Saintonge.

As part of the general uprising in 1242 a number of Inquisitors
were massacred at Avignonet by knights from Montségur,
the last remaining Cathar stronghold. This triggered a new military
action to "cut off the head of the dragon". Hughes des
Arcis, the King's representative (seneschal of Carcassonne)
and the Archbishop of Narbonne laid the siege of the Château
of Montségur
(Montsegùr)
in 1243-4, culminating in the burning alive of more than 225 Cathar
Perfects.

Louis
IX turned his thoughts towards a crusade to the Holy Land. Stricken
with a malady in 1244, he resolved to take the cross when news came
that Turcomans had defeated the Christians and the Moslems, and
invaded Jerusalem. He opened negotiations with Henry
III, King of England, which he thought would prevent new conflicts
between France and England. By the Treaty of Paris (28 May, 1258)
Louis
IX concluded an agreement with the King of England. By this
treaty Louis
IX gave Henry
III all the fiefs and domains belonging to the King of France
in the Dioceses of Limoges, Cahors, and Périgueux; and in
the event of Alphonsus of Poitiers dying without issue, Saintonge
and Agenais would escheat to Henry
III. For his part, Henry III renounced his claims to Normandy,
Anjou, Touraine, Maine, Poitou, and promised to do homage for the
Duchy of Guyenne. It was generally considered, that St. Louis made
too many territorial concessions to Henry
III. Some historians hold that if Louis
IX had carried on the war against Henry III, the Hundred Years
War might have been averted. St. Louis considered that by making
the Duchy of Guyenne a fief of the Crown of France he was gaining
a significan legal advantage. The Treaty of Paris, was as displeasing
to the English as it was to the French.

By the Treaty of Corbeil, Louis imposed on the King of Aragon the
abandonment of his claims to all the fiefs in Languedoc excepting
Montpellier, and the surrender of his rights to Provence (11 May,
1258).

Louis IX. detail from Blanche of Castile
and King Louis IX of France in the Bible moralisée
de Tolède, dite bible de Saint-Louis, scène
de dédicace, circa 1220-1230, The Morgan Library &
Museum, Accession number M240

Pope Innocent III (born 1160, Pope 1198 - 1216)

Innocent III, was born Lotario de' Conti, son of Count Trasimund
of Segni and nephew of Pope Clement III. Innocent was a keen
supporter of Crusades, including the disastrous Fourth Crusade.

Mass desertions from the Roman Church to the Cathars
in the Languedoc (and the consequent loss of prestige and revenue)
had already suggested to him the idea of a Crusade against his fellow
Christians. Arnaud
Amaury, Abbot of Cîteaux had been conducting a preaching
campaign that had proved an even greater failure than the one run
by Dominic
Guzman (St-Dominic).

The luxurious lifestyle of Arnaud
Amaury and his Cistercian
monks excited mockery rather than envy in the Languedoc. Arnaud,
personally humiliated, was now out for blood. The murder of
a papal legate - a fellow Cistercian
monk - provided the ideal excuse for action. At Arnaud's prompting,
Innocent III ordered a crusade
against the people of the Languedoc.

Their sovereign, Raymond
VI, Count of Toulouse, appealed for an impartial investigation.
Innocent sent a lawyer called Milo, ostensibly to to carry
out a fair assessment, but with secret instructions to take
orders from Arnaud
Amaury - Raymond's mortal enemy. Arnaud was therefore
able to slake his thirst for blood and was soon leading the
papal crusade. He personally adopted the role of its first
military commander. His crusader troops - the dregs of France
- enjoyed the same privileges as those who fought the Moslems.
Killing Cathars, like killing Moslems, assured the
killer the highest place in Heaven.

Peter of Les-Vaux-de-Cernay in his contemporary Historia
Albigensis was aware of the deceit, and
does not seek to conceal it.

The pope had instructed Milo to consult the Abbot
of Citeau in all matters relating to the business
of the faith, and especially in anything concerning
the Count of Toulouse, since the Abbot would be aware
of the state of that business and have a thorough
appreciation of the twists and turns of the Count
Raymond's mind. Indeed, for this reason the Pope had
expressly instructed Milo "The Abbot will do
everything, you will be his instrument. The Count
is suspicious of him; you will not be suspect"
... Milo consulted him on a number of specific points
concerning the business of the faith. The Abbot gave
his advice in writing and under seal, giving him detailed
instructions on all points.

WA Sibly and MD Sibly, The History
of the Albigensian Crusade (Boydell Press, 2002)
§71 (p41), an English translation of Pierre
des-Vaux-de-Cernay, Historia Albigensis.
The "business of the faith" is Pierre's usual
term for the Crusade.

Innocent
claimed to have been given the whole world to rule over by God,
and succeeded in extending the papacy's feudal power, acquiring
as fiefs Portugal, Aragon, Hungary and England, and purporting to
reassign important feudal properties of the Counts
of Toulouse and Peter
II, the King of Aragon.

Innocent III opened the Fourth Lateran Council on 15 November 1215.
This was the most important council of the Middle Ages. Besides
deciding on another crusade to the Holy Land, it issued seventy
decrees, the first of which was a creed (Firmiter credimus)
against the Cathars and Waldensians,
in which the term "transubstantiation" received its first ecclesiastical
sanction. It also established the essential principals of
what would become the Papal
Inquisition under his nephew Pope Gregory IX.

A hymn, called Veni Sancte Spiritus, popular among the Crusaders
as they burned supposed heretics, is usually attributed to Innocent
III. It is sometimes called the "Golden Sequence," and
is prescribed in the Roman Liturgy for the Masses of Pentecost and
its octave, exclusive of the following Sunday.

Remember that name; for the present he is burning Albigensians,
but he has higher ambitions.
(Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose).

Gui was born at Royères, in the Limousin, in 1261. He was
also known as Bernardo Gui and in Latin as Bernardus Guidonis, He
entered the Dominican
Convent at Limoges, and became a friar in 1280. Ten Years later
he became Prior of Albi, and subsequently Prior at Carcassonne,
Castres, and Limoges.

He
is remembered for his tenure as Inquisitor
of Toulouse
which he took up at the behest of Pope Clement V between 1307 and
1323. He is known to have passed sentence on at least 900 people
over fifteen years. His victims included Cathars,
Waldensians,
so-called False Apostles, Beguines, Jews, and alleged sorcerers
and necromancers. Unknown numbers were executed. Documentation survives
for 42 who lost their lives for the crime of believing something
other than Catholic teachings.

For his services to the Roman Church Gui was made Bishop of Tui
in Galicia by Pope John XXII, and a year later became Bishop of
Lodève.

His fame, or infamy, rests mainly on his most important work, Practica
inquisitionis heretice pravitatis or "Conduct of the Inquisition
into Heretical Wickedness", It gives a list of supposed heresies
in the early 14th century, and advises Inquisitors how to deal with
the questioning of members of each "heretical" group.
It is useful as a source of information on the prerogatives and
duties of Inquisitors and for forms of condemnation and instructions
for examinations. It also reveals how difficult Inquisitors found
it to argue against Cathars in open debate.

This work was lost for a time, but was rediscovered and published
by the abbé Douais at Toulouse in 1886.

Jacques Fournier

Jacques Fournier, Bishop of Pamiers: (c 1280 -
1342) Famous for his Inquitation records which survived in the Vatican
Archives after he was elected Pope as Benedict XII.

Jacques Fournier is believed to have been born in Saverdun in the
Comté
de Foix around the 1280s to a family of modest means. He became
a Cistercian
monk and left to study at the University of Paris. In 1311 he was
made Abbot of Fontfroide
Abbey. In 1317 he became Bishop of Pamiers. There he undertook
a rigorous hunt for Cathar believers, which won him praise from
Catholic authorities, but alienated local people. He was an exceptional
Inquisitor.
Uniquely "Monsignor Jacques" was interested in what had
really happened, kept records of his interrogations and managed
to have them preserved to provide a treasure trove for historians.
He made a name for himself by his skill as an Inquisitor during
the period 1318-1325. He conducted a campaign against the last remaining
Cathar believers in the village of Montaillou,
as well as others who questioned the Catholic faith. Inquisitorial
efforts stretched into the territories of Aragon, from where the
last known Cathar Parfait of the Languedoc, Guilhem
Belibaste, was lured back to be burned alive by the Archbishop
of Narbonne.

Fournier's records have been documented in Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie's
pioneering microhistory, Montaillou, village occitan. Complete
editions of the register have been published in Latin and in French,
but only portions have been translated into English.

He personally supervised almost all of his operations, occasionally
using torture to extract information. The bulk of his interrogations
relied on Fournier's verbal skill at drawing out information. He
conducted 578 interrogations in the 370 days his Inquisition was
in in operation.

The Fournier Register is a set of records from the Inquisition
run by Fournier between 1318 and 1325. Fournier interrogated hundreds
of suspects and had transcripts recorded of each interrogation.
He demanded a great deal of detail from those appearing before
him. Most of those he interrogated were local peasants and the
Fournier register is one of the most detailed records of life
among medieval peasants. The records have been the focus of scholars,
most notably Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie whose pioneering work of
microhistory Montaillou is based on the material in the
register. Thanks to his records, we know more about life in the
tiny Pyrenean village Montaillou
than we know about life in London or Paris in the early fourteenth
century.

Prior to Bishop Fournier the local authorities had done little
to pursue so-called heretics, and the region was one of the last
areas of Europe to be home to a significant number of adherents
to the Cathar religion, a full century after the French Crusade
against the Cathars of the Languedoc.

The severest sentence was to be burnt at the stake, but this
was rare, with this inquisition only sentencing five heretics
to this fate. More common was to be imprisoned for a time or to
be forced to wear a yellow cross on one's back. Other punishment's
included forced pilgrimages and confiscation of property.

The record was assembled in three stages:

During the inquisition itself a scribe would make quick notes
in short form to record the conversation.

These would then be expanded into full minutes, which were
then presented to the accused for review and alterations in
case of errors.

Finally a final version would be recorded.

The process involved translating the dialogue from the local
Occitan language to the Latin of the Church.

In 1326, on the successful rooting out of what were believed
to be the last Cathar adherents in the area, he was made Bishop
of Mirepoix in the Ariège. A year later, in 1327, he was
made a cardinal.

Benedict X is now considered an antipope, but in his own
time and for long afterwards recognised as the rightful pope.
As a result, the man the Roman Catholic church now officially
considers the tenth Pope Benedict took the number XI, rather
than X. This has advanced the numbering of all subsequent
Popes Benedict by one.

Fournier succeeded Pope John XXII (131634) as Pope Benedict
XII in 1334, being elected on the first conclave ballot.

He made peace with the Emperor Louis IV, and came to terms with
the Franciscans,
who were then at odds with the Roman See. He was a reforming pope
who tried to curb the luxuries of the monastic orders, though without
success. It was he who ordered the construction of the Palais
des Papes in Avignon. He rejected many of the ideas developed
by John XXII and campaigned against the Immaculate Conception. He
engaged in long theological debates with noted figures such as William
of Ockham and Meister Eckhart. He died on 25th April , 1342).

Here is what the 1912 Catholic Encyclopedia had to say about
him, before the value of the Fournier Register had been appreciated.

Pope Benedict XII (JACQUES FOURNIER)

Third of the Avignon popes, b. at Saverdun in the province
of Toulouse, France, elected 20 December, 1334; d. at Avignon
24 April, 1342. Nothing is known of his parentage or boyhood.
In youth he became a Cistercian monk in the monastery of
Boulbonne, whence he moved to that of Fontfroide, whose
abbot was his natural uncle, Arnold Novelli, by whose name
Fournier was also known. He studied at the University of
Paris, where he received the doctorate in theology. Meantime
he was made Abbot of Fontfroide, succeeding his uncle who
was created cardinal 19 December, 1310. In December 1317,
he became Bishop of his native Diocese of Pamiers, was translated
to Mirepoix 26 January, 1327, and was made cardinal by Pope
John XXII, 18 December, 1327. On the latter's death, 4 December,
1334, the cardinals in conclave, most of whom opposed a
return to Rome, demanded of Cardinal de Comminges whose
election seemed assured, the promise to remain at Avignon.
His refusal precipitated an unexpected canvass for candidates.
On the first ballot, 20 December, 1334, many electors, intending
to sound the mind of the conclave, voted for the unlikely
Cardinal Fournier, who, though he was one of the few men
of real merit in the college, was but lightly regarded because
of his obscure origin and lack of wealth and following.
He amazed the conclave by receiving the necessary two-thirds
vote. On 8 January, 1335, he was enthroned as Benedict XII.

Senior Church Offices were still
commonly family sinecures at this time

Resolved to re-establish the papacy at Rome, Benedict signalized
his accession by providing for the restoration of St. Peter's
basilica and the Lateran. He was prepared to acquiesce in
the petition of a Roman deputation soliciting his return,
but his cardinals pictured the impossibility of living in
faction-rent Italy. They were right, whatever were their
motives, and Benedict yielded. Conscience-stricken during
a critical illness, he proposed as a compromise a transfer
of his court to Bologna. The cardinals urged the slender
hope of securing obedience, and Benedict decided to remain
at Avignon, where in 1339 he commenced to build the massive
papal castle which still exists. Mindful always of distracted
Italy, he often sent money to succour the famine-stricken
people and to restore churches. Reform of abuse was Benedict's
chief concern. Immediately after his elevation he remanded
to their benefices clerics not needed at Avignon, and menaced
with summary chastisement violators of the law of residence.
He revoked the scandalous "expectances" granted
by his predecessors and forbade conferring benefices in
commendam. He condemned unseemly "pluralities"
and conferred benefices with such conscientious discrimination
that several were left long vacant, and so gave colour to
the calumny that he was himself harvesting their revenues.
He inveighed vigorously against greed for gain among ecclesiastics;
regulated the taxes on documents issued by papal bureaux;
made episcopal visitation less of a financial burden to
the clergy; abolished the practice of countersigning requests
for papal favours, which was extremely lucrative to venal
officials; and established the Registry of Supplications
for the control of such petitions. Abhorring nepotism, he
granted preferment to but one relative, naming the eminent
John Bauzian Archbishop of Arles in deference to the insistence
of the cardinals; he compelled his only niece to discourage
noble suitors, and marry one of her own humble rank. A legend,
vouched for by Ægidius of Viterbo (d. 1532), accredits
him with saying, "a pope should be like Melchisedech,
without father, mother, or genealogy". Monastic reform
particularly engaged his zeal. Himself a Cistercian, he
sought to revive pristine monastic fervour and devotion
to study. Pertinent papal constitutions and visitations
of monasteries attest his solicitude for a monastic renaissance.

Expectancies, pluralities and nepotism
- just a few of the many corrupt Papal practices then
current

Being a learned theologian, he was as bishop, cardinal,
and pope, keenly interested in scholastic discussions. He
terminated the controversy on the vexed question as to whether
the Beatific Vision was enjoyed before or only after the
General Judgment. John XXII had advocated the latter view
and stirred up vigorous discussion. Eager to solve the question,
Benedict heard the opinions of those maintaining the theory
of deferred vision, and, with a commission of theologians,
gave four months to patristic research. Their labours terminated
in the proclamation (29 January, 1336) of the Bull "Benedictus
Deus" defining the immediate intuitive vision of God
by the souls of the just having no faults to expiate. Zealous
too for the preservation of the Faith, he stimulated the
bishops of infected districts to vigilance in the repression
of heresy and urged the use of the preventive remedies of
the Inquisition. He combatted energetically the anti-papal
doctrines which the ecclesiastico- political theorists of
the disturbed Avignon period had spread, and which were
unfortunately sustained by a school of misguided Franciscans.
(See FRATICELLI, MARSILIUS OF PADUA , WILLIAM OF OCCAM,
MICHAEL OF CESENA.) Distressed by disloyalty in Ireland,
he tried to persuade Edward III to establish the Inquisition
in his realm and urged him to assist the Irish bishops to
extirpate heresy. But, though the most ardent foe of heresy,
Benedict was remarkably patient and loving in dealing with
heretics. He looked also to the union of the Eastern Church
with Rome through a delegate of the Emperor Andronicus,
whose sincerity, however, Benedict was forced to question;
manifested his solicitude for the Church in Armenia which,
in the early fourteenth century, suffered from Mohammedan
invasions, succouring the unfortunates in temporal matters
and healing doctrinal differences which had long rent Armenia
with schism.

The Spiritual Franciscans,
following St Francis's teachings on poverty, were
condemned and burned as heretics.

Ireland had come under nominal English
control under Henry II at the bidding of an earlier
pope

In purely ecclesiastical affairs Benedict's pontificate
was creditable to himself and productive of good to the
Church. Pious, prudent, and firm, he strove conscientiously
to meet the Church's needs at a critical period. In political
relations, however, he was not so successful. Inexperienced
in politics, he had little taste for diplomacy and an imperfect
knowledge of men and affairs of the world. Conflicting political
motives confused him, and hesitancy and vacillation contrasted
painfully with his firmness and decision in ecclesiastical
matters. Though determined to act independently of Philip
VI of France, the latter generally succeeded in committing
the pope to his policy. He helped to prevent his return
to Rome. He frustrated his desire to make peace with the
Emperor Louis of Bavaria whom John XXII had excommunicated
for fomenting sedition in Italy, proclaiming himself King
of the Romans, and intruding an antipope. Willing to absolve
him should he but submit to the Church, Benedict exposed
to Louis's delegates his generous terms of peace (July,
1335). But Philip, aided by the cardinals, persuaded the
pope that his generosity encouraged heresy and rebellion.
Benedict yielded. Thrice the imperial envoys came to Avignon,
but French influence prevailed, and, on 11 April, 1337,
Benedict declared it impossible to absolve Louis. The latter,
as Benedict feared, allied himself with Edward III of England
against France. In vain the pope tried to avert war, but
he was no match for the kings and their allies. His good
offices were spurned; and he was humiliated by Philip's
later alliance with Louis, who had also allied to himself
the pope's political and ecclesiastical enemies, and by
the emperor's denial of the pope's authority over him, and,
worst insult of all, by his usurpation of papal power in
declaring the nullity of the marriage of John Henry of Bohemia
and Margaret Maultasch, that the latter might marry his
son, Louis of Brandenburg. The French king hindered Benedict's
projected crusade against the infidels, making the war with
England an excuse to forego his promise to lead the armies,
and even diverting the money subscribed for it to financing
his own wars, despite the protests of the conscientious
pope. Benedict's crusading ardour found solace in Spain,
where he encouraged the campaign against the Mohammedans
who in 1339 invaded the peninsula.

Fournier's failure and humiliation
are rather underplayed here.

Benedict XII has not escaped calumny. Reformer, foe of
heresy, builder of the Avignon papal palace, unwilling ally
of France and enemy of Germany, he made many enemies whose
misrepresentations have inspired most non-Catholic appreciations
of his character. Much harm was done to his memory by the
satires of Petrarch, who, though befriended and honoured
by Benedict, yet bitterly resented his failure to return
to Rome. His natural obesity, too, stimulated caricature
and undeserved criticism. But history offers a vindication
and testifies that, though he failed to cope successfully
with the political difficulties to which he fell heir, his
piety, virtue, and pacific spirit, his justice, rectitude,
and firmness in ruling, his zeal for doctrinal and moral
reform, and his integrity of character were above reproach.

As for so many popes, only sympathetic
Catholic historians have been able to discern his
true qualities. All other historians have been misled
by enemy propaganda into believing falsehoods about
him.

Raymond held his lands under the feudal system from a number
of his relatives. Most of these lands were held as
a vassal of the King
of Aragon, but some (notably Provence) he held from the Holy
Roman Emperor, some from the King
of France and some from the King
of England.

Raymond was not a great fighter, but he was a good diplomat,
and most historians agree that he played a poor hand as well as
he possibly could.

With a suzerain like Peter
II of Aragon, allies like the Count
of Foix, loyal vassals to the East like the Viscount
of Béarn and the Count
of Comminges, relatives like the Trencavels,
loving subjects, and the secret sympathy of many of crusader nobles,
it looked as though he might beat off the combined might of Western
Christendom. But it was not to be. Pope
Innocent III had secretly planned his humiliation from the
first, possibly as a way to establish a precedent for his personal
dream of becoming feudal suzerain of the whole world. Worse,
for Raymond, the crusaders were led by Simon
de Montfort, a man of great courage, impressive military skill,
vast personal greed, and demonic abilities to be everywhere at
once.

Raymond claimed to be a good Catholic, but he was closely associated
with the Cathar
cause. He listened to Cathar sermons and always travelled with
a Cathar Parfait
in his retinue, yet the circumstances of his death confirm that
he was indeed Catholic. Many of his nobles, friends, allies,
relatives and supporters were undoubtedly Cathars. As Raymond
pointed out at the time, no-one in his position could possibly
exterminate Cathar belief as ruthlessly as Pope
Innocent III required him to.

The crusade against the people of the
Languedoc was prompted by the failure of the Church's
preaching campaign against the Cathars and the murder
of a papal legate in 1207. The Count of Toulouse was held
responsible, denied a trial, and obliged to submit to
the Church which designed a specially humiliating ceremony
of "reconcilliation" (which would later evolve
into the formal amende honourable)

Canso, laisse 77
"The Count was led naked to the doors of the church
of Saint-Gilles. There, in the presence of the legate,
and the archbishop and bishops (of whom more than twenty)
had gathered for the ceremony, he swore on the Body of
Christ and on numerous relics of the saints which priests
were displaying with great reverence in front of the church
gates, that he would obey the commands of the Holy Roman
Church in all matters. Then the legate had a robe placed
around the Count's neck. Holding him by the robe, he gave
him absolution by scourging him and led him into the church".

In 1215 Simon
de Montfort besieged Toulouse
and Narbonne. Raymond was obliged to negotiate with the
pontifical legates. They made him the most humiliating propositions,
that he had no option but to accept. Stripped of his estates,
he retired to England, where his close relative King
John of England offered him sanctuary - until pressed to expel
him by the Roman Catholic Church.

Again exiled, this time in Aragon, Raymond VI reassembled his
troops, and took Toulouse
in 1217, defending it successfully against Simon
de Montfort, who was killed on 25 June, 1218 besieging it.

Before his death Raymond VI had wrested from Amaury de Montfort
nearly all the conquests of Simon
de Montfort.

Raymond VI died in 1222 at a period when his lands looked safe.
Excommunicated, he had already abdicated in favour of his son,
Raymond
VII, in order that his lands should not be forfeit - even
if the novel temporal claims of the papacy were ever accepted.
He died while excommunicated and thus was denied a Catholic burial,
though he he had been accepted into the ranks of the Knights
Hospitallers shortly before he died.

Click on any of the the links on the menu below for other important
figures in the Cathar Crusade.

Raymond VI of Toulouse and the Knights
Hospitallers.

The Rue Dalbard runs through one of the oldest neighborhoods in
Toulouse. This road housed the Toulouse headquarters of the Knights
Hospitallers.

In the Languedoc, Grand Priories of the Hospitallers (now the Knights
of Malta) were established at Toulouse and Saint Gilles, under the
patronage of the Counts
of Toulouse. They are the oldest Hospitaller Priories built
in Europe. Between them the two Grand Priories controlled some 80
Hospitaller priories in the Languedoc.

The remains of the thirteenth century Priory in Toulouse is concealed
by a splendid façade of the seventeenth century. Only the
discreet arms over the front door give away the nature of the building
behind the façade.

The knights Hospitallers were founded in 1099 as an order of monks
dedicated to aiding the Lord's sick, running a hospital named after
Saint Jean the Baptist, not far from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre
in Jerusalem. Along with the Knights Templars, the Hospitallers
would soon develop into a military Order of fighting monks, the
shock-troops of the Catholic Church. Today, the Knights Hospitallers
are the world's oldest surviving Order of chivalry.

Within 10 years of their foundation in Jerusalem the Knights Hospitallers
occupied the Church of Notre-Dame de la Dalbade in Toulouse, but
this occupation does not appear to have been authorized, and they
were ejected in 1110. The Count of Toulouse then gave to them the
nearby Church of St. Rémésy and land around it, and
this became their new headquarters in Toulouse, adjacent to the
Church of Notre-Dame de la Dalbade.

The Order was hierarchical, based on numerous Priories, each with
its own Master. Each Priory was subject to a Grand Priory. Each
Grand Priory belonged to a "Tongue" - (one each for the
languages of Provence, Auvergne, Aragon, Castile, France, England,
Germany and Italy). All Tongues were in turn subordinate to the
Grand Master. The Tongue of Provence, representing the Occitan speaking
lands of the Count of Toulouse, had two Grand Priories, one at Saint-Gilles
and one at Toulouse, the two centres of power of the Saint-Gilles
family, Counts
of Toulouse.

The
Grand Priory of St. Gilles had 53 dependent Priories and Toulouse
28 dependent Priories. (There were separate Tongues for the Auvergne
and for France). The priory of Saint-Gilles, the first of all the
European priories, had been created by Brother Gerard Tenque, founder
of the Order, under Bertrand, son of Raymond of Saint-Gilles, Count
of Toulouse, a Crusader who left for the Holy Land in 1109 and died
there in 1112.

The remains of twenty Grand Masters of the Knights of Saint John
of Jerusalem lie in chapel adjoining the Church of Notre-Dame de
la Dalbade in Toulouse, including those of the founder of the Order
Brother, Brother Gerard Tenque.

The Death of Raymond VI,
Count of Toulouse

The Counts
of Toulouse were generally buried in the Basilica of Saint Sernin,
but Raymond VI was regarded as an abettor of heresy and enemy of
the Church. On the other hand, his family had a long tradition as
crusaders and still had friends in high places, notably the military
Orders patronized by his family since their foundation. On 30 May
1218 Raymond made his will in favour of his son Raymondet (the future
Raymond VII), and the Hospitallers and Templars of Toulouse. Witness
were:

Bertran, Count of Comminges,

Roger Bernard, Count of Foix,

Dalmace de Creissel

Pierre de Recalde.

On 5 July the same year, in St. John's Church, Raymond VI was affiliated
to the Order of the Knights Hospitaller of St. John of Jerusalem.
Witnesses were

Dalmace de Creissel,

Pierre de Recalde,

Doat of Alaman,

Brother Jerome Papis, Knight Hospitaller,

Pierre Arnaud, Raymond's notary

Ariber, Raymond's chaplain

Brother Armand de Cabanis, Master of the Grand Priory of the
Hospital of Toulouse, acting on behalf of Bertran, Prior of Saint-Gilles.

The act specifies the last wishes of Raymond VI:

"I, Raymond, by the Grace of God Duke of Narbonne, Count
of Toulouse, Marquis of Provence and son of Queen Constance, [the
sister of the King of France, Louis VII]; I give and entrust myself
to the Lord God Almighty, to Blessed Mary, Mother of Jesus, to
Saint John the Baptiste and to the Hospital founded in his honour
in Jerusalem. I promise the Lord God, and you, Armand de Cabanis,
Master of the House of the Hospital of Jerusalem located in Toulouse,
that I do not wish to take any other religious habit than that
of the Hospital and if by chance I should die before receiving
it, I wish to be buried in the House in Toulouse of the Hospital
of St John of Jerusalem."

And Master Armand de Cabanis confirmed:

"I, Armand de Cabanis, on behalf of My Lord Bertran, Prior
of the Order in Saint-Gilles, and on behalf of the whole community
of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, I receive you, Lord
Raymond, Brother of the Hospital, henceforth to enjoy all spiritual
and temporal benefits available here, as in Outremer. In the name
of Lord Bertran, Prior of Saint-Gilles, and on behalf of the entire
Community the Hospital, I assure you Count Raymond, that when
you wish to receive the religious habit, the Brothers of the Hospital
you will give it to you and receive you as a Brother, according
to the Rule of the Hospital. For a certain surety, I order that
this document be validated and authenticated with my seal. "

Count Raymond VI had been excommunicated on several occasions for
his failure to persecute his Cathar subjects. In 1222 he was still
excommunicated, which meant that he was not entitled to enter a
church, to partake in any of the sacraments of the Church or even,
if he died, to a Christian burial. It was his custom to go twice
a day to the Basilica of Notre-Dame de la Daurade, not far from
the Hospitallers' Grand Priory, where he would pray outside the
door of the church.

On 22 September, 1222 Raymond became ill outside the Basilica of
Notre-Dame de la Daurade. Immediately, he went to his friend (and
viguier) Hugues Jean at the hôtel Maurand (a large private
town house, known as an hôtel particular) on the rue du Taur.
Hugues Jean was a member of the eminent Cathar family Maurand. There,
in the garden of the Hôtel, Raymond suffered a stroke. Paralyzed,
and having lost all power of speech, he was carried into the hôtel.

Father Jordan River, a priest from the nearby church of Saint-Sernin,
rushed to him, wanting to remove the dying count from the hôtel.
Perhaps suspicious of the priest's intentions, Hugues Jean sent
to Armand de Cabanis, Master of the Hospitallers. Armand arrived
with a troop of his knights and carrying a Hospitaller cloak. He
entered the hôtel and, to the dismay of the priest, threw
the Hospitaller cloak over Raymond's prone body. In doing this he
signalled unambiguously that Raymond VI was now a Knight Hospitaller
(in accordance with the agreement made three years earlier). The
Master would ensure that, as a Brother of the Grand Priory of the
Hospital of Toulouse, the Count would have his wishes respected
and defended, if necessary by force of arms by his brother Knights.
Guilhem Catel, in his History of the Counts
of Toulouse, recounts the scene .

"Old Raymond being excommunicate, went in the morning to
pray to God in front of the Church Notre-Dame de la Daurade. Although
he was unwell, he returned after his meal, so weak that one witness
recounts that he could not stand unaided and having gone to the
"Bourg" [ie outside the city proper], to the home of
a man named Hugues Jean, in the parish of Saint-Sernin, after
eating figs, he found himself unwell, and recognizing his indisposition
promptly sent for Sir Jordan River, priest of Saint-Sernin, to
be reconciled with the Church and to ask Jordan to give him the
Blessed Sacrament, protesting that he was very distressed to be
excommunicated. The priest of Saint-Sernin came, and the stricken
man pressed him in such ways as he could, as he could not speak.
Raising his eyes he held his hands together unto death, in the
arms of the said priest, witnessing his great contrition. Knights
of Saint John of Jerusalem, having arrived, with whom he had become
a Brother, they threw a cloak over him, such that the said knights
wear, on which was sewn a white cross, and when someone tried
to remove this coat, he held it with his hands and could no longer
speak, he kissed very devoutly the cross sewn onto it. "

On Raymond's death, his body was immediately removed from the parish
of Saint-Sernin and brought within the defensive walls of the Grand
Priory of the Hospital on the rue de la Dalbade. Excommunicated,
Raymond VI could not be buried in consecrated ground, despite the
sympathy of his brother Knights Hospitaller. It is possible that
Jordan, the priest of Saint-Sernin, had planned to burn the body
since Raymond had died still excommunicated. This would explain
Hugues Jean's urgent message to the Grand Master, the troop of Hospitaller
knights and the immediate removal of Raymond's body from the parish
of Saint Sernin to safe Hospitaller territory in the city.

For centuries, the Hospitallers were to keep the remains of the
excommunicated Count. They placed his body in a plain white marble
sarcophagus, set in the cloister garden of the Grand Priory. On
the marble, one could read a discreet inscription, in poor Occitan:

Not a hi jos terra ome per gran senhor that fo that Getes my
terra if Gleisa no fos.

There is no great[er] Lord under the earth who could have been
dispossessed of his lands if he had had the Church

Later, the Hospitallers separated Raymond's head from the body.
Witnesses in 1377 and 1517 note that the bones of the Count were
abandoned in a corner, or scattered here and there. The head was
kept for at least four centuries with the treasures of the Grand
Priory, and shown to distinguished visitors. A curious impression
was supposedly visible at the back of the skull, "a lily marked
by nature on the bone behind the head" according to Nicolas
Bertrandi. The marks were taken as proof of divine planning, validating
the annexation of the County of Toulouse by France, the arms of
which feature lilies.

Knights Hospitaller

Soon after the fall of Jerusalem in 1187, the Knights were confined
to the County of Tripoli, another County belonging to the Saint-Gilles
family. When Acre was captured in 1291, the order took refuge in
the Kingdom of Cyprus, but sought a kingdom of their own. In 1309
they took the island of Rhodes, then part of the Byzantine Empire.
Under the rule of the newly named "Knights of Rhodes",
the city of Rhodes was rebuilt as a model of the medieval European
ideal. Many of the city's famous monuments, including the Palace
of the Grand Master, were built during this period. Like their fellow
warrior-monks, the Knights Templars, the Knights Hospitallers became
fabulously wealthy with properties throughout Europe.

When the Knights Templars were dissolved by the papacy on trumped-up
charges in the early fourteenth century, their property was transferred
to the Knights Hospitallers, so in 1314 the Hospitallers became
even more wealthy. The following year 1315 the Priory at Toulouse
was elevated to Grand Priory with thirty-five dependent priories
in the southwest of France. In the 14th century the Hospitallers'
establishment on the rue de Dalbade included the Saint Rémésy
church (now jointly dedicated to Saint John), the Hospitallers'
dwellings, a cloister, a tower used as a relic and document repository,
a cemetery, as well as seven shops opening onto the street.

In 1523 Rhodes fell to the Ottoman Sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent
leaving the Order without a state. Seven years later, On 24 March,
1530, Charles V gave to the Order the Island of Malta, then a dependence
of Sicily. By the act, the Grand Master of the Hospitaller Order
of Saint John of Jerusalem became Prince of Malta. The Knights Hospitallers,
previously known as the Knights of Rhodes, now became the Knights
of Malta. In 1630, the Grand Master was awarded ecclesiastic equality
with cardinals, and the unique hybrid style His Most Eminent Highness,
qualifying him as a Prince of the Church.

In 1668 the Grand Prior of Toulouse, Antoine Robin-Graveson, began
to replace the medieval priory with a large hôtel with a prestigious
façade, more like a palace, probably designed by the architect
Jean-Pierre Rivalz. The reconstruction concerned the buildings on
the rue de Dalbade. As well as a new façade and entrance,
there was a new reception room, and chapter house (which can be
seen today). At the same time the cloister was demolished and the
cemetery abandoned. The new building, known as the Hôtel des
Chevaliers, was completed twenty years later in 1688.

The hôtel became national property in 1791, during the French
Revolution. It was divided into lots to be sold, but the planned
sale did not take place. It was eventually sold in 1812 and in 1813
the tower was demolished along with adjacent outbuildings. The archives
were also destroyed. In 1839 the site was acquired by cloth merchants
who wanted to build a warehouse. The Church of Saint Rémésy
and St. John, part of the Grand Priory, was destroyed, and in 1840
a larger hôtel was built with five bays extending along the
rue de Dalbade, with a return along the rue Saint-Jean. In 1839
and 1845, the remains of Knights Hospitallers were collected and
transferred into a chapel of the neighboring the Church of Notre-Dame
de la Dalbade where they remain today. Their names are framed by
statues of two knights in arms.

In 1877 the hôtel was purchased by the Archbishop of Toulouse
Julien Desprez to house the Catholic Institute he founded. In 1903
a new school, the Ecole Superieure de Commerce de Toulouse, created
by the Chamber of Commerce of Toulouse, moved into the hôtel.
The school moved out to new premises in 1985, and in 1986 the hôtel
was purchased by the State. It was assigned to the Regional Chamber
of Accounts and the Caisse des Dépôts. At that time
the building was included in the supplementary inventory of historical
monuments. It was fully listed as monument histprique in October
25, 1990.

In 1996, after a restoration, the hôtel became the headquarters
of the Direction Régionale des Affaires Culturelles de Midi-Pyrénées
("La DRAC") the regional representatives of the Ministère
de la Culture.

The Remains of Raymond VI

The last people who testified having seen Raymond's skull were
late in the seventeenth century, shortly after the reconstruction
of the Grand Priory, completed in 1685. On Sept. 18, 1692, a man
called Percin and in 1695 the historian La Faille [Germain de La
Faille ?] saw it. La Faille noted that the lily was the size of
a small shield. Alas the skull has since disappeared, and we cannot
test it to see how the lily design was created.Shortly before Christmas
1997, a team of archaeologists made a discovery at the Hôtel
des Chevaliers on the site of the Grand Priory. Two sarcophagi were
discovered in two previously unknown enfeus [an enfeu being a type
of funerary monument] in a crypt. On the wall was a fresco in brilliant
colors representing the life of St. James of Compostela.

On the right are the two recently discovered enfeus under the Hotel
des Chevaliers, originally under the Grand Priory. (Forground the
sarcaphagus of the "Dame de Laurac", Background the possible
sarcophagus of Raymond VI)

One sarcophagus bears the carved figure of a recumbent noblewoman,
who has come to be known as the "Dame de Laurac". A carved,
unpainted, coat of arms adorns the sarcophagus. (In French heraldry,
une tour emmottée, un lambel à cinq pendants surmonté
de cinq fleurs de lys en chef. In English heraldry, a tower on a
motte. In chief five fleurs-de-lys. A label of five points).

the "Dame de Laurac" in the Hôtel
de Saint John in Toulouse.

The other sarcophagus is of white stone. Bertran de la Farge who
saw it in 2004 noted that a cross of Toulouse is engraved on the
wall nearby. The barely legible inscription on a plaque in Occitan
says: "... Raymond of Toulouse ...". At the time of its
discovery hopes were high that Raymond's mortal remains would be
discovered inside. Here is what Dominique Baudis then mayor of Toulouse
said at the time:

"I share the excitement and hope of those who have discovered
the tomb that may contain the remains. If this is Raymond VI,
then opening the sarcophagus will not merely reveal his mortal
remains. It will illuminate a precious asset of which Raymond
was the bearer and defender: Freedom of Conscience. It is as if
a great humanism lesson, still relevant today, has risen from
the depths of the Middle Ages to the surface of the present time.
".

In the light of the known history of Raymond's remains, it seems
unlikely that his body would be found inside. Nevertheless, the
sarcophagus might well be his.

Despite widespread public interest, the DRAC has decided to clam
up on the whole topic. In the great French tradition of executive
secrecy the organization created to care for the national patrimony
on behalf of the French people have opted to close the site to the
public and publish nothing at all about the enfeus, sarcophagi or
anything else. French enmity to the Counts
of Toulouse and the cultural tradition they represent, might
not yet be over.

Who's Who In The Cathar War: Raymond VII of Toulouse Ramon
VII de Tolosa: Raimond
VII de Toulouse
Raymond of St-Gilles (1197-1249),
Count of Toulouse (1222-1249)

When Raymond
VI died excommunicated in 1222, he had already abdicated in
favour of his son, Raymond VII, nicknamed Raymondet, in order that
his lands should not be forfeit. He had died believing that
his family's territories were safe.

Raymond
VII was a better military leader than his father, and had assisted
him in the reconquest of his estates. At the age of eighteen
he successfully besieged the town of Beaucaire
and then held it for several months against Simon
de Montfort, his Crusader brother Guy
de Montfort, his son Amaury
de Montfort, and a French Catholic army, before the besiegers
gave up, came to terms and left.

The wars continued into another generation, Raymond VII fighting
against Amaury
de Montfort, son of his Raymond VI's enemy, Simon
de Montfort. While Raymond VII was a better warrior than
his father, Amaury
could not match the prowess of his father Simon. In military
terms, it looked as though the Albigensian
Crusade had failed. In January, 1224, Amaury de Montfort,
reduced to the sovereignty of Narbonne, concluded a treaty with
Raymond, ceding his rights in the Languedoc to the King
of France.

In 1226 a new Royal
Crusade was launched. Louis
VIII, King of France, seized Avignon and occupied the Languedoc
without resistance. On his return to France he died on 8th
November 1226, at Montpensier. Raymond VII, took several
fortified places from Louis' seneschal (Imbert de Beaujeubut) but
in 1228 new bands of crusaders began to plunder the country of Toulouse.

Raymond sought peace from the regent of France, Blanche
of Castile, wife of the old king and mother of the new king.
As part of the peace, under the Treaty of Meaux (also called
the Treaty of Paris), Raymond was obliged to demolish the walls
of Toulouse,
to allow the establishment of the Inquisition,
and to give his daughter Jeanne
of Toulouse in marriage to Alphonse of Potiers, brother of King
Louis IX of France. Afterwards, Raymond returned to Paris.
On 12 April, 1229 was obliged to do public penance at Notre Dame
and to publicly undertake to start persecuting the Jews
of the Languedoc, after which he was released from his excommunication.

Divorces (technically annulments) were routinely given to
powerful noblemen at the time. Any friend of the papacy, or
anyone powerful enough to cause trouble, could expect a divorce
on request. Raymond did not now fall into this category.
By denying him a divorce, the new Pope ensured that there would
be no male inheritor in the Saint-Gilles
family.

Raymond
had one last hope of popular uprising in the Languedoc against the
French occupiers and the Inquisition.
It was planned for 1242, supported by the Holy Roman Emperor (Raymond's
suzerain for Provence), Jaume I of Aragon, Henry
III, King of England, Hugues de Lusignan Count of La Marche,
Roger
IV, Count of Foix, Viscount Trencavel, and other allies.
It proved a disaster. The Holy Roman Emperor kept delaying
until it was too late. Henry III was defeated at Taillebourg
(an event mysteriously omitted from many English history books).
The Aragonese forces were not enough to galvanise the exhausted
population, and the new Count of Foix deserted his family's ancient
ally, sealing both their fates. The only achievement of note
was the killing of a few Inquisitors at Avignonet,
which prompted the final notable action of the war - the famous
siege of the Château of Montségur
(Montsegùr)
, in 1243-4.

In 1247, as Raymond was starting out for Palestine on Crusade
to the Holy Land with Louis
IX, King of France, he died. He was buried in Fontevraud
Abbey along with his Plantagenate relatives (his mother
Jeanne of England, his uncle Richard I of England, and his
maternal grandparents Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine).

As his enemies had planned, Saint-Gilles
lands passed to his sister Jeanne
of Toulouse and her husband, Alphonse de Poitiers brother
of King
Louis. When Jeanne and Alphonse died without an
heir, the The
County of Toulouse passed to the French Crown. The
disaster was total. It marked the end of all hope of
expelling the French from Aquitaine or the Languedoc, the
loss of Provence, the end of Aragonese influence north of
the Pyrenees to balance the French influence, the loss of
all hope for the Trencavel family as for countless other nobles
deprived of their lands, and the irrevocable weakening of
the county of Foix, which today is also part of France.

"In 1249 after the death of Raymond VII, his successor,
his son-in-law Alphonse of France, attempted an act
of clemency, promising to restore confiscated goods
to the repentant children of heretics. The Church forbade
him. In the discouragement that followed, the native
dynasty now extinct, the leading Cathars of Toulouse
fled to Lonbardy. About the same time St Louis destroyed
the Cathar church of Languedoil [medieval France]; and
its remnants also fled across the Alps."

It
was Raymond-Roger Trencavel, Viscount of Béziers
and Carcassonne,
who faced the full force of the first crusade.

Ramon
VI of Toulouse had proposed an alliance with Raymond-Roger,
his nephew, and when the offer was rejected he offered his submission
to the Crusaders and joined the Crusade.

Aware that the Crusaders were on the way, Raymond-Roger reconsidered
his position and joined them en route to offer his submission
too, but it was rejected. (If he joined them as well, his
lands would be protected and there would be no-where for the Crusaders
to destroy and pillage - which is why Arnaud
Amaury rejected the offer.) Raymond-Roger returned to
Carcassonne,
ordering Béziers
to prepare for action on his way. He sent all Jews away
to safety, knowing that the Catholic army would kill them if they
ever got hold of them. This was a precaution as no-one expected
Béziers to fall, and certainly not for a long time.

Everyone had known that the Jews would have been slaughtered
if the town fell, but not that the Crusaders would massacre
everybody they found, Catholics included, if they took the town,
as they did on 22nd of July 1208. Still under the command
of their leader Arnaud
Amaury, Abbot of Cîteaux, appointed by Pope
Innocent III, the Crusaders now turned towards Carcassonne.

From 1st to 15th of August Carcassonne
was besieged. Raymond-Roger Trencavel was seized during
a truce. Without their commander the inhabitants surrendered.
The Crusaders expelled the inhabitants with a day's safe conduct,
so that they could loot at leisure.

Raymond-Roger was imprisoned in his own cachette. Peter
II of Aragon of Aragon, his suzerain, could not help him and
left the Crusaders bitter and disappointed. It was at this
stage that Simon
de Montfort was appointed to hold Raymond-Roger's territories,
and so took over leadership of the Crusaders who stayed.

Raymond-Roger Trencavel, Viscount of Carcassonne,
Béziers, Albi and the Razès died in mysterious circumstances
in his own prison on 10th of November 1208, a few weeks after
his capture. He was aged just 24.

He left an infant son, Raymond II, who became the ward of Raymond
Roger Count of Foix. He later sought exile in Aragon,
returning during the course of the later Cathar Wars in a failed
attempt to reclaim his rightful lands and titles

Raymond-Roger Trencavel's mysterious
death seems to have been generally recognised as murder:
At the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 Raymond of Roquefeuil
made the accusation explicit and no-one, including Innocent
III, demured. The Canso
laisse146 cites Raymond's words in respect of the right's
of the dead Viscount's infant son: "My Lord, true
Pope, have pity on an orphan child, young and in exile,
son of the honoured viscount whom the crusaders and
Sir Simon de Montfort took charge of and then killed.
Wrongfully and shamefully he was martyred and paratge
brought low, brought down by a third, by a half, and
yet you have no cardinal or abbot in your court who
believes more truly in the Christian faith than he did.
As they have killed the father and disinherited the
son, will you, My Lord, give him his fief and keep your
own dignity? And if you refuse to give it to him, may
God do you the grace to add the weight of his sins to
your own soul! If you do not appoint a day soon to give
him his fief, then I myself claim it. I claim the right
and the inheritance from you on the Day of Judgement
when we shall all be judged". This speach was well
received. The barons commented to each other how well
he had laid the accusation and the Pope said "This
shall certainly be seen to".

That his crusaders had murdered the
Viscount would hardly have been news to the Pope. In
a letter two years earlier Innocent III himself acknowledged
in writing to Arnaud
Amaury and others that Raymond-Roger Trencavel had
been "wretchedly slain" - "miserabiliter
interfectus" {Patrologiae Latina (J-P Migne,
Paris, 1844-64) v 216, col 739}.

At the time of the suspicious death of his twenty-four year
old father, Raimond Trencavel was still an infant. Although
he was not guilty of heresy or anything else he was deprived
of his patrimony and contrary to all feudal law his titles and
lands were awarded to Simon
de Montfort.

Raymond sought exile in Aragon, returning during the course
of the later Cathar
Wars in attempts to reclaim his rightful lands and titles.
The most notable attempt occurred in 1240. he led a revolt with
his loyal vassals, fellow faidits, Catalan and Aragonese troops,
and fellow Occitan nobles in liberating Limoux, Alet, Montreal,
and other towns. Then he tackled his late father's strongest
fortress, Carcassonne,
now in the hands of the French invaders. On 17th September 1240
an offensive was launched reinforced with mines and catapults
with the support of the inhabitants of the Carcassonne
suburbs of Saint-Michel and Saint-Vincent. The defense led by
Guillaume des Ormes leading Louis
IX's royal troops, drove Raymond back on October 12. The
offensive had failed after a month. Raymond was then himself
besieged at Montreal. Raymond
VII of Toulouse stayed neutral and mediated a truce under
which his cousin Raymond Trencavel returned to Aragon. Towns
that had supported their dispossessed lord were treated with
the customary brutality.

Raymond was forced to renounce his rights to his four Viscounties
in 1246. A year later he smashed his seal as a sign of submission
to Louis
IX, the King of France. Breaking a ruler's seal was something
that normally happened only on the death of its owner. Raymond's
vassals, like the Lord of Termes,
were released from their feudal allegiance and the family of
Trencavel was destined to disappear from history, another victim
of the rapacious aggression of the French Catholic crusaders.

Raymond-roger was the son of Roger-Bernard of Foix and Cécile
Trencavel. He married Philippa de Moncade in 1189. They had three
children: Esther, Roger-Bernard (who succeeded him as Count of Foix)
et Cécile.

He accompanied the French king Philippe
Augustus on Crusade to the Holy Land in 1191 and was present
at the siege of Ascalon and at the fall of Saint-Jean-d'Acre. He
returned when Philippe
Augustus abandoned the Crusade, miffed at the superior generalship
of his fellow monarch Richard Cur de Lion, King
Richard I, The Lionheart.

Raymond-roger increased his family domains in the foothills of
the Pyrenees.
He took the high Urgell and the Cerdagne with a view to retaking
Andorra. With Arnaud de Castelbon he found himself fighting the
combined forces of Count Ermengol VIII of Urgell and Bernard de
Villemur, the Bishop of Urgell. Both Raymond-Roger and Arnaud were
captured and imprisoned from February to September 1203. King
Peter II of Aragon intervened to secure their release, and awarded
the Raymond-Roger various Catalan seigneuries in 1208 followed by
the the castles of Usson
and Quérigut in 1209.

Raymond Roger was one of the most impressive personalities of the
Cathar Crusade, indeed of all European history. He was a close
relative of Raymond
VI, Count of Toulouse and a staunch ally. He was famed
for his military prowess as much as for his chivalry, loyalty and
attachment to paratge.
He was not merely a patron of the troubadours,
but a formidable poet himself.

From
the taking of Carcassonne
in 1209 when Simon
de Montfort emerged as the military leader of the Crusade, Raymond-Roger
aligned himself with Raymond
VI of Toulouse. He started by retaking Preixan. Two years later
he was victorious at the battle of Montgey. His own castle at Foix
was besieged four times. In 1214 he was obliged to submit and his
castle was handed over to the papal legate who allowed Simon de
Montfort to occupy it. Raymond-Roger supported the uprising led
by Count Raymond VII of Toulouse and took part in the defence of
Toulouse in 1217 during with Simon de Montfort was killed. Soon
aferwards, in 1208, he was able to regain his own castle at Foix.

The Count was a great orator, and attended the Fourth Lateran Council
of 1215 to defend Raymond of Toulouse before Innocent
III and his Council. When he himself was accused of having
murdered priests, he did not trouble to deny it, and told Innocent
to his face that in the circumstances he regretted not having killed
more of them. Not perhaps a good example of his diplomatic
skills, but a very good one of his confidence, standing and courage.

By the time of his death in 1223, the count had regained all of
his terittories with the exception of Mirepoix. Characteristically,
he died while besieging it

Roger Bernard II, Count of Foix (1223-1241). Surnamed "the
Great", Roger Bernard was another charismatic leader, man of culture,
and protecter of his people, a loyal ally of Raymond
VII of Toulouse. His wife, Ermessinde de Castelbon, was
a Cathar
Believer .

Roger IV, Count of Foix (1241-1265). Roger initially aligned
himself with Raymond
VII of Toulouse, but abandoned the alliance after the final
failed uprising against the French in 1242.

Foix For an aside about the link between the Counts of Foix and
Andorra, and how a later Count acquired the throne of France, click
here

Esclarmonde de Foix (c 1151 - 1215)

Esclarmonde was born sometime after 1151. Her name means "
Light of the World " in Occitan.
She was nicknamed "The Great Esclarmonde" (La grande
Esclarmonde).

She was the daughter of Roger Bernard I, Count of Foix and Cécile
Trencavel. She was therefore sister to Raymond-Roger
Count of Foix. She married Jourdain de l'Isle-Jourdain, Seigneur
de l'Isle-Jourdain. Their children included Bernard who later inherited
the County of Foix, Guillaumette, Olive, Othon de Terride and Bertrand,
Baron de Launac.

She was widowed in October 1200, and from this time turned openly
to the Cathar Church. In 1204 she received the Consolamentum
from the hands of the Cathar Bishop Guilhabert de Castres, so becoming
a Parfaite,
a member of the Cathar Elect. The ceremony, at which three other
great noblewomen (Aude de Fanjeaux,
Faye de Durfort, and Raymonde de Saint-Germain) also received the
Consolamentum,
took place at Fanjeaux
in the presence of her brother Raymond-Roger
Count of Foix. From this time on she would become a champion
of the Cathar faith.

She took up residence in Pamiers and it is thought that she was
responsible for the decision to refortify the Castle at Montségur
( Montsegùr)
in preparation for the likely assaults by the French Catholic Crusaders.
In 1207 she took part in (and probably organised) the Colloquy of
Pamiers (also called the Colloquy of Montreal) the last public debate
between the Cathars and the Roman Catholic Church whose representatives
were led by Dominic
Guzman (St-Dominic). It was at this debate that Esclarmonde
famously tried to speak, only to be admonished by a representative
of the Roman Church: "go to your spinning madam. It is not
proper for you to speak in a debate of this sort". The churchman's
faux pas, as obvious to an educated Occitan auience as it is to
most people today, was not at all obvious to Dominic
Guzman . and his supporters. The Catholic church's treatment
of such a prestigious figure as Esclarmonde could only have had
the opposite effect to that intended, yet up until the twenty first
century the Church never seems to have grasped why their representatives
lost in these debates so comprehensively or so consistently.

Esclarmonde de Foix and her sister-in-law Philippa jointly ran
a House for Parfaites at Dun in the Pyrénées,. A sort
of prototype convent, it functioned as a school for the education
of girls and as a sort of retirement home for aged Parfaites.

Esclarmonde is credited with opening a number of hospitals, schools
and Cathar convents - something the Roman Church had not done previously,
but started to do later as part of its concerted hearts and minds
campaign. Dominic
Guzman's first Dominican
friary can still be seen at Prouille,
within sight of Fanjeaux
in the Languedoc.

One of the many modern images reflecting
a mythical
rather than the real Eslarmonde de Foix

Esclarmonde of Foix has become become something of a role model
for feminists, and her name - almost forgotten for seven hundred
years - is becoming ever more popular. A quick web search will reveal
a range of sites from Esclarmonde de Foix fan clubs to an "Esclarmonde
de Foix Memorial Travel Scholarship" at the University of Winnipeg.
According to at least one Gnostic Church she was an Cathar Archdeaconess
in life and is now a saint.

Peter II, King of Aragon - Pere el Catòlic.

Peter II, (1174-1213) was King
of Aragón (1196-1213) and count of Barcelona (as Pere I), son
and successor of Alfonso II. He was surnamed the Catholic.

His parents were Alfonso II of Aragon and Sancha of Castile. He
was crowned (1204) at St Pancrace's Church in Rome by Pope
Innocent III , and accepted the pope as overlord of Aragón and
Catalonia. He acknowledged the feudal supremacy of the Papacy
- in line with Innocent
III's largely successful attempts to establish himself at the
apex of the feudal system. He was crowned in Rome by Innocent, swearing
to defend the Catholic faith (hence his surname, "the Catholic").

On June 15, 1204 he married Marie of Montpellier, daughter and
heiress of William VIII of Montpellier by Eudocia Comnena. Peter
was her third husband. Together they had a short-lived daughter
Sancha (1205-1206); and a son, James. Later, Peter discarded her.
She died in Rome in 1218 and was buried in St Peter's Basilica.

In 1212 Peter he helped Alfonso VIII of Castile to defeat the Moors
at Las Navas de Tolosa. This battle was the turning
point in the history of Medieval Iberia. The forces of King Alfonso
VIII of Castile were joined by the armies of his rivals, Peter II
of Aragon and Alfonso II of Portugal to fight the Muslim Almohad
rulers of the southern half of the Iberian Peninsula.
Caliph al-Nasir led the Almohad army. The defeat of the Almohads
signaled the beginning of a long decline in the power of the Moors
in the Peninsula.

Following his performance against the Moors, Peter II was the most
famous and respected crusader of the period. He had
driven the Moslems from much of Spain, and won plaudits from the
Papacy for his leadership. But Peter's problems had
already started when the crusaders purported to replace Raymond-Roger
Tranceval as Viscount of Carcassonne
and Béziers
in 1209. How could they do this? Feudal law
was absolutely clear that it was for Peter as suzerain, to appoint,
confirm and dispossess his own vassals - but now Innocent had a
legal claim to be Peter's suzerain. Even the Northern
Lords were uneasy about this precedent. As they clearly
saw, if Innocent
III got away with this then neither they nor any sovereign in
Christendom would be safe.

Peter returned from Las Navas in the autumn of 1212 to find that
in the course of the Cathar
Crusade. Simon
de Montfort had conquered Toulouse, exiling Raymond
VI Count of Toulouse, Peter's vassal and brother-in-law. Peter
crossed the Pyrenees
and arrived at Muret in September 1213 to confront de Montfort's
army. He was accompanied by Raymond
of Toulouse, who gave Peter excellent counsel, to avoid battle
and instead to starve out Montfort's forces. This suggestion was
rejected as unknightly. Peter fought at the subsequent battle of
Muret in 1213, but was killed during a needless show of bravado.
(He was fighting in disguise - a common ploy for kings at the time
and not apparently regarded as unknightly. A lowly vassal armed
as the King of Aragon attracted the scorn of the Crusaders and Peter,
unable to contain himself, shouted out something to effect of "here
I am, come and get me".) He died, as brave as he was foolish
at the hands of two French Crusader knights.

The death of the most famous Crusader in Europe, a King, surnamed
the "Catholic", fighting against brother crusaders, shook
both armies and indeed left the whole of Christendom horrified and
bewildered. Though no-one realised at the time, his
death marked the beginning of the end of Aragonese hegemony north
of the Pyrenees.

He is buried in the Convent of Sigena at Vilanueva de Sigena. He
was succeed by his son Jaume El Conqueridor (Jaime I or, in English,
James I, the Conqueror).

Savaric (Savory) de Mauléon and others

Savaric de Mauléon (
Mauléoun, Basque Maule) (1181-1233) Vassel of King
John of England (as suzerain of the Aquitaine). Baron of Poitou.
Seneschal of Saintonge, Seigneur of Châtellaillon, Talmond, Benon,
Angoulême, la Flotte en Ré and Fontenay. He was also a celebrated
Troubadour.
He is recorded as having written a poem to Eleanor, Countess of
Toulouse, undertaking to support her with 500 knights against the
invaders of her domains.

As brother-in-law of Raymond
VI, Count of Toulouse, King John of England was a natural ally,
particularly since John's mother Eleanor
of Aquitaine had divorced the King of France and married the
King of England, taking her dowery, the Aquitaine, with her.
It is not surprising therefore that John's Seneschal, Savaric de
Mauléon should come to fight alongside Raymond of Toulouse. He
is mentioned several times in the Song of the Crusade. [61, 86,
87, 89, 93, 103, 123]. One source, the anonymouse History of
the Dukes of Normandy and Kings of England, suggests that it
was on John's initiative that Savaric became involved.

Niort in the Aquitaine was defended against the French by Savary
on behalf of John in 1205. Savary had been a prisoner taken at Mirebeau
and subsequently sworn an oath of fealty to the King of England.
From thenceforth he proved a wise and valuable ally. It was Savary
de Mauléon who stayed the hand of King John when he planned
to execute the defenders of Rochester after their eventual surrender
in November 1214.

All records except one portray Savaric as a most noble knight.
The One exception is the Historia
Albigensis which consistently bases its character
assessments on how much the person in question supports the Crusade.
Here is my favourite example from the whole of the Historia
Albigensis [254]:

With our enemies came that most depraved apostate,
that iniquitous transgressor, son of the Devil, servant of the
Antichrist, Savary de Mauleon; more evil than any heretic, worse
than any infidel, assailant of the Church, the enemy of Christ.
O most corrupt of of mortals - or should I say himself a mortal
infection - I speak of Savary, who, villain unredeemed, shameless
and senseless, rushed head first against God and dared to assault
the Holy Church of God! Prime mover of heresy, architect of cruelty,
agent of perversity, comrade of sinners, accomplice of the perverted,
a disgace to mankind, a man unacquainted with manly virtues, devilish
- himself the devil incarnate.

This traslates as "Savaric was a strong ally of the Count
of Toulouse". Actually, if the author of the Historia
Albigensis had known more about Savaric, he might
have been less strident. For example when Savaric was not rewarded
financially for his contribution to the campaign at Castelnaudry
in 1211 he went off with the son of Raymond
VI, Count of Toulouse (the future Raymond
VII) and held him hostage until a ransom was paid. Later, in
1219 Savaric would go crusading in the Holy land, and would later
fight alongsideLouis
VIII in his murderous campaign against Raymond
VII in 1226.

Guilhem Belibaste the last known Cathar
Parfait in the Languedoc. He lived almost a century after
the start of the Cathar Wars.

He
lead an extraordinary life for anyone of the period, let alone
a CatharParfait.
He was the son of another Guilhem Bélibaste, a rich farmer
from Cubières, now in the Aude
departement of the Languedoc-Roussillon. His family are known
to have held Cathar sympathies.

After killing a shepherd he fled Cubières and became a
shepherd himself. At some stage he adopted Cathar
beliefs. He was the pupil of Pierre and Jacques Authié
who had recently re-introduced the Cathar
faith to the Sabarthes area on what is now the French side of
the Pyrenees.
He eventually took the Consolamentum
and became a Parfait.

He settled in Catalonia at Sant Mateu and Morella - an area under
the control of the King of Aragon, and beyond the reach of the
Papal
Inquisition then established in the French controlled territories.
Like other Parfaits
he worked for a living, in his case making baskets and carding
combs. He was also mentor and pastor to a local community of Cathars,
some of whom had fled persecution in the Languedoc. Members of
this community travelled regularly between the two regions, including
Pierre Maury, a native of Montaillou.

In violation of the celibacy demanded of the Cathar
elect, Bélibaste enjoyed sexual relations with at least
one woman. According to Cathar
belief, this act nulified the effects of the Consolamentum
so from that point onwards he was no longer a Parfait.

In 1313 Belibaste's lover, Raymonde Piquier, became pregnant,
Bélibaste persuaded Pierre Maury to marry her to provide
cover for his relationship with her, making it appear the child
was Maury's. A few days later, he dissolved the marriage (another
odd thing for a CatharParfait
to do), apparently stricken by jealousy.

After a sting operation initiated Jacques
Fournier, the Inquisitor
Bishop of Pamiers, in which he was induced to return to territory
controlled by the Inquisition,
he was captured and condemned to death. His last night on earth
went some way to restoring his tarnished reputation, since he
spent it trying to help the friend who had betrayed him. He was
burned at the stake in 1323, in Villerouge
Termenès, the property of the Archbishop of Narbonne.

Much of Bélibaste's biography can be found in the pages
of Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie's book Montaillou. Bélibaste
is frequently mentioned in the interrogations of suspected Cathar
sympathisers from Montaillou.

Bélibast is sometimes used as an example to illustrate
Cathar ideas and practices, but there are just too many oddities
in his life for him to used as an examplar. After taking the Consolamentum
he is known to have lied and had sex. He contemplated suicide
knowing that his Consolamentum
had been invalidated. His theology was not sophisticated and probably
best explained by aspects of Cathar
theology being abondoned or neglected as the faith was persecuted
into oblivion - though Belibaste seems to have been well aware
that his behaviour had nullified his status at a Parfait.
Despite this, like a long line of more orthodox Parfaits
before him, he went to the stake with a dignity and fortitude
that any martyr
would envy.

Below are a couple of recent works in French concerning Belibaste,
with English translations and notes.

Not everyone would accept that this is
the most complete surviving account of Cathar doctrine (nor
the most reliable) but it certainly throws an interesting
light on the supposed mechanics of reincarnation.

The last and most celebrated Cathar in Occitania has
left us the most complete account that we have on Cathar doctrine.
However he was, without doubt, one of the most mediocre pastors
of the Church of the Good Christians.

Guilhem Bélibaste was born around 1280 at Cubières,
a village in the County of Razès (now in the Aude).
His family of yeoman farmers, was totally given over to
the Cathar
faith. At Cubières, the Bélibaste family received
numerous notable Parfaits
such as Pierre Autier and Philippe d’Alayrac. Guilhem's
brother, who were shepherds, frequently accompanied some
of these Parfaits
on their clandestine journeys. despite the efforts of the
Catholic Church over almost a century to eliminate the the
Cathar
heresy, it was still in good health, and was growing again
in the Ariège an in the Razès, because of
the preaching of the Autier brothers.

From the Inventaire des archives de l’archevêché
de Narbonne (now in the bibliothèque de Narbonne.)
the victim has now been identified. He was called Barthélémy
Garnier, from Villerouge
Termenès.

It was very common at this time for Lords
Spiritual to hold temporal lordships.

Despite his family affiliations, it was not by way of a
vocation that Guilhen Belibaste became a CatharParfait,
but rather by chance. Around 1305-1306 in the course of
a fight, he killed a shepherd from Villerouge
Termenès (see below). A judicial action was taken
against him. The Archbishop of Narbonne, Lord of Villerouge
and of Cubières held him guilty and conficated
his belongings. To save his skin Bélibaste abandoned
his wife and son, and took to the clandestine world of the
CatharParfaits.
To save his soul, and by way of penitance, he had to join
the Elect. He was initiated and ordained as a Parfait
at Rabastens (now in the Tarn) by Philippe d’Alayrac.
But the two companions were arrested and locked-up in the
sinister prison of the
Inquisition at Carcassonne:
"The Wall". However, in 1309 they managed to escape
and sought refuge in Catalonia, in the county of Ampurias.
When Philippe d’Alayrac came back to the Kingdom of
France to exercise his ministry, Bélibaste, less
courageous, prefered not to accompanie him. It was a wise
choice, because shortly after he learned of the arrest and
death at the stake of his erstwhile companion.

Fearing for his saftey, he distanced himself, in stages,
from the fronteer where his risked being recognised and
arrested. as a precaution he also changed his name: he had
himself called Pierre Penchenier, a name inspired by his
new career as maker of carding combs. He also sold his labour
for seasonal work in the vinyards and worked as a shepherd
near to Poblet with his friend Pierre Maury.

Cathars did not believe in marriage, so
it is not obvious why Belibaste thought he had the power
to perform a marriage ceremony, or to annul one.

The Imperfect Cathar of Morella

In 1314 he moved to Morella, in the Kingdom of Valence.
The neighbouring village of San Matéo sheltered a
small community of Cathars
in exile from Occitania, most of them from Montaillou
(in the Ariège), to whom he became their pastor.
In the heart of this community he sometimes abused his spiritual
authority, notably with his over-generous friend Pierre
Maury: This latter recounted: "as we had bought jointly
, Bélibaste and me, six sheep, for which I had paid
the entire price (and, in addition, given him five shillings),
the heretic wanted to take three of the six, saying that
they were his, and that I had given him the money for these
sheep and the five shillings for the love of God. To mislead
the Catholics, he made out that he was married and living
with a widow Raimonde Marti, and her daughter. In reality
Raimonde Marti had been his mistress for several years,
and fell pregnant in 1320. Now, to mislead the Cathars,
because he had broken his vow of chastity, he married her
to his friend Pierre Maury, who [ostensibly] accepted paternity,
then, jealous, annulled the mariage.

"an embryo as yet without life".
Belibaste apparently shared the traditional Catholic view
(abandoned by the Vatican late in the nineteenth century)
that an embyo aquired life when it aquired a soul - not
at conception but some weeks through the embyo's development

However, he took seriously his role as pastor. He preached,
blessed, administered the Consolamentum
(Catharsacrement)
to the dying, and regulrly received believers,
including Arnaud Sicre, whose mother died at the stake.
To this latter [Arnaud Sicre] he taught in his naïve
way, populist but imaginitive, the beliefs of his religion:
"Then the enemy of God, Satan, made men's bodies in
which he trapped these spirits ... These spirits, when they
leave their tunics, that is to say their bodies, flee completely
naked, terrified, and they run so fast that if a spirit
left a body in Valence and had to enter another in the County
of Foix [on the other side of the Pyrenees] and if it was
raining hard over the whole journey, barely three rain drops
would have fallen during that time. Fleeing, thus frightened,
it will place itself in the first empty hole that it can
find, that is to say in the belly of any animal carrying
an embryo as yet without life: bitch, doe, mare, or any
other animal, or again in the belly of a woman, in such
a way however that if this spirit has behaved badly in its
previous body, it will be implanted in the body of a brute
beast; if on the other hand it as not behaved badly it will
enter the body of a woman. Thus the spirits pass from tunic
to tunic, until they enter into beautiful tunic, that is
to say into the body of a man or a woman who has the understanding
of good (ie a Cathar),
in which body it will be saved, and after leaving this beatiful
tunic, it will return to the Holy Father.

In reality, Arnaud Sicre, so keen to "open himself
to the understanding of Good" was only there to win
the confidence of Bélibaste, to have him arrested,
and to have the goods confiscated from his mother, restored
to him [Sicre] by the Inquisition
who had sent him.

Bélibaste, despite the attendant dangers wanted
to visit other Parfaits
in order to have himself re-ordained. He allowed himself
to be convinced by Arnaud Sicre to return to the Languedoc.
On the road to Tirviain the diocese of Urgell, in March
or April 1321, Arnaud Sicre denounced him to the Bailiff
of the Count of Foix, lord of the place. Arrested and taken
to Castelbon, he was imprisoned in the tower of the château
with (as was the custom) his denouncer. During the night
Bélibaste attempted in vain to convince Arnaud to
receive the Consolamentum,
and to commit suicide
together [jumping] from the top of the tower to enter directly
into heaven. Judged at Carcassonne,
Bélibaste was burned the same year at the Château
of Villerouge
Termenès, residence of the Archbishop of Narbonne
his lord, who had already condemned him for murder.

With Bélibaste the Cathar
Church in Occitania disappeared: after his death and up
until the middle of the Fourteenth Century, only simple
believers were burned. However, a Cathar
Church subsisted in Bosnia, the members of which converted
to Islam at the end of the Fifteenth Century. The last Parfait
in Occitania strayed often from the rule of the rigorous
life of the Elect.
However, he died with dignity without abjuring his faith.
His death as a martyr
argues to this day for religious telerance.

Most of what we know about Bélibaste
comes from the depositions of Arnaud Sicre and Pierre Maury
to Jacques
Fournier. These depositions have been published by Jean
Duvernoy [one of the leading Cathar expects of the present
day]: Le registre d'inquisition de Jacques Fournier
(Évêque de Pamiers), 1316-1325. published
by Mouton, Paris, 1978.

The origins of Belibast and the murder committed
by him are set out in an article by G. LANGLOIS: "Note
sur quelques documents inédits concernant le parfait
Guilhem Bélibaste et sa famille", dans la revue
Heresis published by the Centre d’Études
Cathares, n° 25, 1995. [reproduced below in French and
in Enlish translation]

The only work dedicated exclusively to Bélibaste
is in Italian: Lidia FLÖSS : Il caso Belibaste,
Milano: Luni Editrice, 1997.

Henri GOUGAUD has written a novel: Bélibaste,
pulished by Seuil in 1982.

All of these works can be read at the Centre
d’Études Cathares at Carcassonne.
(Tél. 04 68 47 24 66). The Château of the Archbishops
of Narbonne at Villerouge
Termenès (Aude),
houses a permanent exhibition dedicated to Bélibaste
and his times. (Tél. 04 68 70 09 11).

Three unpublished legal documents allow us to clarify some
aspects of the history of the last known Parfait
in Occitania and his family. Guilhem Bélibaste, made
famous by the works of Jean Duvernoy, the study by Emmanuel
Leroy-Ladurie on Montaillou,
the novel of Henri Gougaud, and whose life is presented
at the Château of Villerouge
Termenès was until now known only through Inquisitorial
records. Seven people had made depositions against Bélibaste
and his family before the InquisitorJacques
Fournier, among them Pierre Maury of Montaillou,
a friend of Bélibaste, and the despicable Arnaud
Sicre who had been responsible for Bélibaste's arrest.

The three newly discovered legal documents are therefore
precious. These three documents are known only through analysis,
carried out around 1640 by the notary Antoine Rocque in
his Inventaire des archives de l’archevêché
de Narbonne (2). Lacking the original documents, lost
during the Revolution, this inventory (the value of which
had already been noted by Jean Tissier (3), provides us
with an analysis of a myriad documents and registers. The
pieces described in this inventory had been conserved and
analysed to serve as proof of the rights, spiritual and
temporal, of the Archbishop of Narbonne. Mentions of heresy
in them are rare and most often marginal in the description
of these documents.

The first document tells us that a certain Ramon Bélibaste
had a house in the village of Cubières in 1260. This
Ramon is perhaps the grandfather of Guilhem Bélibaste.
In any case the family Bélibaste seems to have been
established at Cubières at least from the middle
of the thirteenth Century.

It was known from the deposition of Peyre Maury that Guilhem
Bélibaste had fled Cubières between Easter
1305 and 24 June 1306 after having killed a shepherd in
the course of a quarrel. The second document confirms the
fact of of this murder and the date (before the end of 1307).
This document specifies that legal proceedings had been
initiated by the Archbishop of Narbonne (no doubt by his
Bailiff at Villerouge),
proceedings which provide a better expanation for Bélibaste's
flight. It states also that Bélibaste's goods had
been confiscated for the benefit of the Archbishop, following
the condamnation for murder. What were these goods? His
inheritance from his parents? This presupposes that Guilhem
senior or his wife had died before the end of 1207, either
shortly before or after the flight of their son. However
that may be, following this confiscation, Guilhem junior's
son and wife remained at Cubières, doubtlessly lacking
from a material point of view. This would provide an explanation
of their deaths before 1311, unless the justice system had
something to do with it.

"the secular arm". In theory
at least the Catholic Church elected not to soil its hands
by executing people it condemned to death. It therefore
handed over its victims to the local secular power to carry
out the judicial killing on its behalf. In this case (and
in many other cases) the Ecclesiatical judge and the secular
power responsible for the execution were one and the same
man.

Finally, this document clarifies the reasons for choosing
Villerouge
Termenès as the place of execution of Guilhem
in 1321. Bélibaste had been handed over to the secular
arm in the form of the Archbishop of Narbonne in his [temporal]
capacity as Lord of Cubières and Villerouge
Termenès. It is suggested that VVillerouge
must have been chosen by way of making an example in
this territory, the Termenès, still impregnated with
heresy, because Villerouge
was the seat of the Bailiff of the Archbishop (of which
Cubières was a dependency), and the Archbishop (who
was probably present at the execution) had a residence there.
Two supplementary reasons can be advanced to explain the
choice. It was probably the Archbishop's Seigneural Tribunal
that had condemned Bélibaste for murder. It was necessary
to demonstrate the power of the Archbishop's seigneural
justice, which did not leave this crime unpunished. The
document tells us also that the Bélibaste's sheperd
victim was called Barthélémy Garnier and that
he was originally from Villerouge.
The execution therefore rendered justice to an inhabitant
of Villerouge.

The third document concerns Arnaud, one of the brothers
of Guilhem. Little is known about Arnaud, who appears only
twice in the Register of Jacques
Fournier. Pierre Maury who is the only one who
mentions him seems not to have known him well and was not
altogether certain that he was a heretic (unless Pierre
Maury lied by omission, but this is improbable as this would
mean that he was not aware of the condemnation of Arnaud,
and was trying to protect him). The document states that
Arnaud had been condemned to death for heresy and that his
goods, a castle, had been confiscated for the benefit of
the Archbishop of Narbonne before the end of 1312. So Arnaud
was certainly a Cathar.
Condemnation to death for heresy was relatively rare; three
hypothesese could explain his condemnation. Either Arnaud
had relapsed, that is to say abjured the heresy then had
returned to it; or he was a Parfait;
or he had refused to abjure his faith [in the first place].
Whatever the explanation, was this condemnation enforced?
The hypothesis that he had been condemned as contumaceous
and that he then took flight is not likely, because he would
then have encountered other Cathars
and his existance would have been noted in the depositions
of some of them before the
Inquisition.

In conclusion, different sources show us that the Bélibaste
family was extensively and convincingly accused of Catharism,
as can be seen from the accpanying family tree. They show
us also that Civil and Inquisitorial justice crushed this
family in the years 1307-1312 and that consequently Guilhem
Bélibaste must have been in the sights of the Inquisition
very early. Bélibaste's family appear to have been,
for the greater part, destroyed by the Inquisition.

The House of Toulouse (
Tolosa)

The family of Saint-Gilles
was one of the most powerful in Europe. As Counts
of Toulouse they held a huge area of land in the early Middle
Ages. Before the Cathar Crusade they enjoyed great prestige,
even within the Roman Church. They were much more than the
title of Count might suggest to modern ears. They were also
Dukes of Narbonne, Marquises of Provence and suzerain lords of other
territories, with some fifteen other, more conventional, counts
as their vassals.

They were regarded as the equal of most kings and were related
to the leading families of Europe, notably the Kings of England,
France
and Aragon.
Their
Courts were indistinguishable from royal courts.

The distinction between names and titles was not well developed
in the middle ages, so the family may be called de St-Gilles
or de Toulouse interchangeably. They came originally
from the town of Saint-Gilles,
an important centre where two pilgrimage routes to Compostella (the
voie d'Arles and the voie Regordane) converged. In medieval times,
Saint-Gilles
was a major commercial centre and in its own right and the fourth
most important pilgrimage site in Europe.

Many of the Counts were named Ramon, an Occitan name which
is the same in modern Spanish, more familiar as Raymond in
English and Raimond in French. Later members of the
dynasty are often refered to in French literature as the Raimondines.

The Raimondines were arguably the most enlightened rulers in Europe
until the advent of modern secular states. Somthing is known about
the allies
and the nobles of the counts, and also their relationships with
their
people, with the Jews
and with Religious
Dissidents. The price they paid at the hands of the Roman Church
and the French Crusaders was public flogging, dispossession and
ultimately the extinction of their noble House. Despite the best
efforts of the Roman Church to demonise their memory and of successive
French governments to efface all vestiges of their rule, there are
still powerful links in the Languedoc to a clearly remembered golden
age, before the territories of the Counts
of Toulouse were annexed to France.

Raymond of Toulouse taking the oath to liberate
Jerusalem

bishop Adhemar of Le Puy (in red to left
of Raymond IV of Toulouse in white)

The Cross of Toulouse

This
device was the coat of arms of the family of St-Gilles, Counts
of Toulouse in the Middle Ages.

Wherever you go in the Languedoc, you will notice the Cross of
Toulouse. You will find it incorporated into official
arms of local government bodies, embroidered on flags, carved in
stone, wrought in iron, printed on postcards, displayed in stained
glass. You will find it worn as jewellery, sold as souvenirs
to tourists, scrawled on walls as graffiti. You will
even find it set in brass in the ground in public squares and visible
in patterns of red and gold flowers.

Heraldry of the Cross of Toulouse

In
(English) heraldic terms the cross of Toulouse is described as "gules
a cross clechy pommety and voided or". In French Heraldic terms
as "de gueules, a la croix vidée, clechée, pommettée
et alaisée d'or". Both translate into lay language
as "on a red background, a yellow cross with pointy ends and its
centre cut out, and a bobble (pomette) on each of its 12 points.
The twelve pomettes may well have evolved from 12 rivets used to
fix a cross clechy onto a real military shield, reflected in the
version above right.

One medieval roll blazons the arms as "de goules a un croyz d'or
pate et perse a une bordere d'or", which sounds like an inadequate
attempt to describe the same arms.

The arms are so well known that even in English heraldry, the term
"Cross of Toulouse" is used as a shorthand term that any herald
will understand. Under heraldic convention the length of the arms
of the cross may be varied according to artistic convenience, for
example to fill a long shield.

According
to tradition Raymond
IV (~1093-1095) adopted the cross during the First Crusade,
but it is known to have been used before the First Crusade. In 990
Guillame Taillefer, Count of Toulouse, married Emma, daughter and
heir of Roubaud, Count of Provence, bringing Provençal counties
as her dowry. In these lands the Counts vassals appear to have been
the first to adopt the cross. It was mentioned in 1080 at Marseille,
in connection with the Counts of Venasque. Their county, the Venaissin,
would soon after pass into the hands of the Count of Toulouse as
Marquis
of Provence.

The cross appeared soon after on the banner of Raymond de Saint
Gilles, Count of Toulouse, and when the family
of St Gilles became Counts
of Tripoli it flew over their possessions there too. It was
arguably the only honourable flag ever flown on the Christian side.
The most ancient cross in existence today is one decorating the
keystone of a vault in the nave of the cathedral of St. Etienne
in Toulouse, dated 1211.

Some
believe the origin of the cross of Toulouse to be pre-Christian.
Its origin may have been a twelve-ray solar wheel, such as one found
in Saint-Michel-de-Lanes not far from Toulouse. The twelve discs
may have symbolised the twelve houses of the zodiac - as they do
in the large modern cross set into the square outside to Capitole
in Toulouse
(shown left). The cross is studded with metal bosses (shown right)
each decorated with examples of the cross of Toulouse as it developed
over the centuries.

The
arms of the town of Lloupia (shown right), preserve an ancient form
with the colours reversed. A remote origin of the cross is possible.
For example the Turfan cross, in Eastern Turkestan, closely resembles
the arms of Loupia. This form consists of a single continuous looped
line as shown on the left. It is possible that the design travelled
into Europe from the East following the same route that Cathar
teachings did. Similar crosses have been found in northern Italy
(Pisa and Venice), Provence (Forcalquier as well as Venasque) and
Spanish Catalonia (Santa Maria de l'Estany).

the cross shown here set into the ground
at Toulouse is studded with metal plates like this. It is
decorated with example of the cross of Toulouse shoing its
historical development

stèle de Montferrand-dAude

The Occitan Cross

The Cross of Toulouse still closely associated with the former territories
of the Counts
of Toulouse, and with its distinctive culture, including its
language, Occitan.

The first known written reference to the cross is in a 1173 document
written by a Provençal notary. When the Counts
of Toulouse acquired the Provence they added the cross to his
arms. It eventually became the symbol of Languedoc resistance to
the French invaders following the crusade
against the Cathars
of the Languedoc in the time of Raymond
VI. In the contemporary Song
of the Cathar Wars, laisse 109, written in Occitan,
it is called la crotz ramondenca (The Raymondine Cross).

The
Cross, or variants of it, is used as a badge of a small independence
movement, those who would like to Occitania become an independent
state, just as Catalans in the Roussillon and in Spain would like
to re-establish an independent Catalonia.

Similarly it is used by those who would like to see the Occitan
language revived.

croix assyrienne or nestorienne (avec une inscription syriaque)

The "Cathar Cross"

The Cross of Toulouse is often referred to, especially by those
catering for tourists, as the "Cathar Cross". There is no justification
for this. The Cathars
detested all representations of the Christian Cross. They regarded
it as no more than an instrument of torture - and found worship
of an instrument of torture as offensive as modern rationalists
do.

The
idea that Cathars might have adopted any form of cross is unsupported
by evidence, and is untenable given their beliefs. You can be certain
that anyone who talks to you about Cathar Crosses, or tries to sell
you one, knows nothing about the Cross of Toulouse, the Cathars,
or the history of the Languedoc.

Although it is mistake to refer to the Toulouse Cross as a "Cathar
Cross", by a coincidence it is in heraldic terms literally an "empty
cross" - an idea that matches Cathar theology rather well, since
the Cathars believed that Jesus was not crucified.

René Nelli, an expert in Catharism, has referred to a different
cross - a human-shaped cross schematically represented by a Greek
cross topped by an inverted V. You will find this on some monuments
to Cathar victims of Catholic
Crusaders and Catholic
Inquisitors.

There
is another meaning to the term Cathar Cross. Repentant first offenders
who admitted to having been Cathar heretics, and abjured their faith
when released on licence by the Inquisition
were required to:

"...carry from now on and forever two yellow crosses
on all their clothes, except their shirts, and one arm shall be
two palms long while the other transversal arm shall be a palm and
a half long and each shall be three digits wide with one to be worn
in front on the chest and the other between the shoulders."

Victims were required to renew the crosses if they became torn
or destroyed by age. These yellow crosses, like the yellow badges
of a different shape that the Catholic Church required Jews to wear,
were badges of infamy - warnings to good Catholics to shun the wearers.
These crosses were known in Occitan as "las debanadoras"
- reels or winding machines. The idea seems to be that offenders
could be "reeled in" by the Inquisition
at any time. This was a serious concern since a second accusation
meant a second conviction, and a second conviction meant death.

Not a Cathar Cross

Not a Cathar Cross

Not a Cathar Cross

Significance of the Cross of Toulouse

The Cross of Toulouse makes an elegant, well proportioned, yet
simple design, and as such has been exploited shamelessly by the
Tourist industry.

Most
people who use the Cross of Toulouse probably never think about
why they use it. But it must be significant that it
is so widely used. In contrast, the official logo of
the Languedoc-Roussillon
is used by virtually no-one other than those sponsored by the regional
council.

Somewhere,
mixed in with the commercial exploitation at one extreme and frustrated
nationalism at the other is an abiding respect for and identification
with the Counts
of Toulouse, so widely loved by
their people and so egregiously treated by their worldly
enemies.

You will find hints of this respect and identification everywhere
in the ancient territories of the Counts
of Toulouse, from the flags flown by pretty much everyone with
a flagpole, to the most subtle acknowledgements. The cross of Toulouse
features in the middle of the city's arms (shown right), while the
mairie of Toulouse and the Midi-Pyrenees region both use the arms
undifferenced. The Capitouls of Toulouse surmount the city arms
not with a conventional civic mural crown, but with the coronet
of their ancient suzerains.